Older Brother - Tournament Trials
by White Angel of Auralon
Summary: The Triwizard Tournament has come to Hogwarts. It should be a chance to meet witches and wizards from other countries and create ties to them. But somebody has it out for Aaron again. Harry Potter will show the world why you don't mess with his Family. Sequel to Older Brother
1. An Exciting Quidditch Match

**Hi, everybody. This year's Christmas Story is the sequel to my story 'Older Brother'. Many have asked me to write a sequel, which I did and I decided to skip to Aaron's fourth year for this. I hope you enjoy the Story. I will post one chapter every day until they're all up.**

 **Merry Christmas.**

 **Permanent disclaimer: As Always I don't own anything concerning Harry Potter, I only Play in JKR's sandbox.**

* * *

 **An Exciting Quidditch Match**

Harry Potter sat in front of his parents' tent, talking to his friend Cedric Diggory. The two soon to be seventh-years at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry talked excitedly about the soon to commence finals of the Quidditch World Cup. Harry wasn't that tall for his age, he only stood at 1.77 metres, but that was alright with him, he was a seeker and they normally were small and speedy. He had inherited his father's messy black hair and his mother's brilliant emerald eyes. Thankfully he had also dodged his father's bad sight with getting his mother's eyes. Cedric was 1.82m tall and had brown hair with blue eyes.

Harry often teased Cedric about being a pretty boy. Harry's younger siblings Aaron, Dahlia and Jasmine were off with their own friends, scouting the stands for memorabilia of the teams. The match was Ireland against Bulgaria and it was hard to say who would win. While Ireland had the better chasers, Bulgaria had Viktor Krum, the currently best seeker in the world. Well, it was up to discussion in their minds, because Harry could give him a run for his money, they thought. Harry had become seeker for Gryffindor House in their first year at Hogwarts, making his father James incredibly proud.

Harry had been offered to play for the English team, but his mother Lily had put her foot down on him going professional before he had graduated. A real shame. All Potter males were of that opinion, but none dared to oppose Lily Potter on that topic. She was scary when she was furious.

Since Voldemort had attacked the Potters in 1981, the family had become famous, but thankfully Lily and James had stayed away from the idiocy that was made about Aaron Potter, the so-called Boy-Who-Lived. Harry and Aaron had been at home with their grandparents while their parents had been called for an emergency Order meeting because their spy, Severus Snape, had told them about a raid planned against St. Mungo's. The Order had prevented the raid, but it had only been a distraction. Voldemort had been told the location of the Potter home by the traitor Pettigrew and had come to kill the Potter children. But the sacrifice of their grandparents had somehow given Aaron and Harry a protection against Voldemort. At least that was what Dumbledore believed based on the little Harry had told him back in 1981, after the attack. When Voldemort had attempted to kill Aaron first, the curse had rebounded and cost him his body.

Harry knew more than that, knew that his grandmother had used runes to give both brothers a strong protection against Voldemort, including of making Harry a guardian for Aaron. And this power held to this day, and Harry had used the shield he could conjure to block the wraith that he had met in May of 1992, during that stupid incident during Aaron's first year at Hogwarts. Thanks to that, Harry knew that Voldemort was still alive. He had seen the wraith two years ago, at the end of his fourth year, when he had followed his little brother and his merry band of friends into the third-floor corridor that was out of bounds because Dumbledore had hidden the Philosopher's Stone there.

They had been hit with a confundus charm to go there. The Potters believed that the spell had been used by Dumbledore, who wanted to test Aaron, but they couldn't prove it. Harry had helped his brother by keeping Quirrell too occupied to really act against the younger brother, who had been hidden from sight, while they waited for their uncle Sirius Black and the aurors to arrive. Harry at fourteen was much more of a match for Quirrell than Aaron at eleven. Their father had taught both of them advanced Defence for their age, but still, Aaron wasn't up to such a task yet. Harry had known spells that would make a sixth-year envious and possessed the casting speed to put them to good use.

After that encounter, James Potter and Sirius Black, his best friend and current head of the auror office, had upped their training. Even Jasmine and Dahlia got started on exercises, even if they were just nine years old. But dodging wasn't a matter of age, as the two adults thought.

All of the Potter children were magically strong, angering the pureblood fanatics immensely. Harry had been at the top of his year since his second year. In first-year he had had some problems with Snape, who, despite being on their side, was a major bastard. Only his mother giving Snape a piece of her mind in a howler had got the man off his back and treat him neutrally. That was all Harry needed, what with his mother teaching him all he didn't get from Snape's classes. Aaron was normally second or third in his year, depending how much effort he put into his work. It didn't matter to any of the Potters, as that ranking was more than enough. They wanted their children to have fun, as long as they didn't slack on their studies. Aaron was chaser on the Gryffindor team since last year. Alicia Spinnet had had problems to coordinate her work for the OWLs with Quidditch and had quit the team and Aaron had won the spot during the try-outs.

Of course, some idiots claimed that it had been favouritism, because Harry was the Gryffindor Captain, but Aaron had shown how good he was in the first game against Slytherin, shutting everybody up with a spectacular performance. Harry, completely annihilating Draco Malfoy, the Slytherin seeker, didn't help Slytherin's mood any. Between Harry, the Weasley twins, the chasers and Oliver Wood Slytherin got completely destroyed. Nobody had dared to say anything against Aaron being on the team after that. Harry had to snort at the stupidity of people. After all, it was widely known that Potters were naturals in the air. That was true for all children of James and Lily by the way. Jasmine and Dahlia, who would start their second year at Hogwarts this year, also had shown great talent during flying classes.

Cedric, while being in Hufflepuff, had been Harry's best friend since they were five. Cedric's and Harry's mothers had been friends at Hogwarts and had arranged some play dates for Harry and Cedric. Chiana Diggory didn't think too highly of Molly Weasley and her ways to raise her children, therefore she wasn't that eager to let Cedric play with them, even if they were living in the same village. In her eyes, Molly was too controlling, too smothering and she babied her children to the extreme. On top of that, Ginny Weasley seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with Aaron Potter, which the now fourteen-year-old boy found creepy. Aaron had a great dislike for his Boy-Who-Lived-Fangirls.

Well, today he wouldn't think about that, he was here to see the finals of the Quidditch World Cup. His godfather Sirius had got them the tickets. As Head Auror he always got tickets for events like these and he always invited his best friends and their families to them. Thus, the six Potters and the four Blacks would be in a private box directly next to the Minister's box. It was made for security reasons officially, but every auror knew that the disruptive elements were too happy with the current Minister's incompetency to attack him. But there simply hadn't been alternatives to Cornelius Fudge when Millicent Bagnold had retired, which Harry knew from Sirius' rants that the man was highly incompetent.

Harry and Cedric hadn't bet on the outcome of the match when Ludo Bagman had come by. Harry could only shake his head at the stupidity of the man. In an area where you had to practice anti-muggle security you didn't run around in Wimborne Wasp Quidditch robes and you didn't talk about Quidditch terms while not lowering your voice. Well, since the selling booths had come, the security had been shot anyway. Why the Ministry didn't send the muggles on vacation he didn't know. It would have been much easier. A simple confundus charm would have done the trick and the ones on duty wouldn't have needed to obliviate the poor muggles all the time. James Potter had only chuckled about Harry's comment and swore to tease Sirius about it later. The idea was so simple and still so brilliant.

Finally, it was time to head to the stadium. The crowd of excited witches and wizards moved towards the wood behind which the stadium was located.

* * *

Harry and Cedric watched Aaron and his friends discuss the match excitedly while drinking butterbeer. The match had been great, the Irish Chasers had been superb and Krum a sight to behold. How Harry wished that he had been able to go up against the Bulgarian. Well, next year nothing was stopping him from accepting the offer from the English team. Finally, when Hermione Granger seemed to sleep while sitting, Lily shooed the younger kids inside the tent. It had been a long evening and now it was really time to sleep. Harry and the others stayed outside for a bit longer. Just when they wanted to head inside, they heard a commotion from a distance away, followed by screams and lights that were much too bright to be simple camp fires. Then there was the distinct light of several spells being cast.

"Dad, Uncle Sirius, something is going on over there," Harry informed the two men.

"You're right, Harry. Quick, wake the kids and take them to the wood. Organize a controlled retreat. Make sure that none are left behind!" Sirius ordered, and Cedric and Harry ran into the tents, intent on getting the kids up and to safety.

Two minutes later all the kids were outside.

"Listen, this is an emergency. Keep your wands at hand; don't mind the underage sorcery law. Go to the wood and hide. We will stop whoever is making the ruckus. Keep to Harry and Cedric and don't run off on your own," James informed the younger kids and they nodded.

Cedric took the lead while holding Juno Black's hand, she was only eight after all, while Aaron, Jasmine, Dahlia, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom and Aries Black followed closely behind. Harry brought up the rear to shield against possible attacks from behind. All the Hogwarts students held their wands and lit the way with them. Finally, after ten minutes of running into the wood, Cedric had the group stop and he and Harry looked around. It seemed as if they were safe for now.

"Keep your eyes open and in doubt fire disarming charms and stunners at anything that moves," Harry ordered the younger children.

It was a simple safety procedure that Harry had learned from Sirius. If in danger, take out first, apologize later. It was why his godfather was so good at his job. While Alastor Moody was legendary as an auror for his paranoia, his protégée Sirius Black was infamous for utilizing unconventional methods and succeed. While many had ranted about his policy of stunning first, his results spoke for themselves. A downed opponent wasn't a danger anymore and if you had made a mistake, you could apologize later. And the stunning spell wasn't harmful, the most that could happen was the victim having a headache, except it fell unluckily. But his real success came from insisting on searching each downed opponent and making sure to check the bare forearms for the Dark Mark. And each potential Death Eater had had to defend him- or herself under veritaserum. Azkaban was full of so called imperius victims.

Because, while the imperius curse made you do horrible things without having control, you still remembered everything you did and if asked if you willingly became a Death Eater and took the mark, only those under imperius would answer with no. Nott, McNair and the Carrows went to Azkaban that way. Sirius was sure some got away, but without proof that somebody was suspect as a Death Eater no investigation worked. The Ministry was that corrupt. The smartest one that Sirius suspected as a Death Eater was Lucius Malfoy, but without substantial proof there was nothing that could be done. He had set up an alibi and lived in France on one of his family's estates until 1988. That had been when he deemed it safe enough to return, as the persecution from the war had died down to nil. Not even Sirius could gain a warrant for his arrest anymore.

Harry finally noticed movement to the left and heard somebody call out 'Morsmordre'. His stunner flew to the place quicker than anybody could assume. He heard a dull thud.

"Cedric, I'm going to see who it was that I hit. Keep the others over here, Uncle Sirius and the aurors are sure to arrive here any moment. That was the Dark Mark he fired into the sky!" Harry pointed out and indeed the mark floated in the night sky and the screams from the outer woods increased tenfold.

Cedric nodded, and Harry ran over, making sure to be ready to shield against more stunners. Just when he reached the spot and started searching for the hit he made, he heard pops of apparition, shouts of stupefy and Cedric shouting 'down'. He ducked and found cloth next to a stunned house elf. He tore away the cloth and a wizard with blond hair appeared who had been invisible before. Harry quickly took his wand away and then a hand was on his shoulder.

"What do you think you are doing?" A harsh voice asked.

"Securing evidence and disarming a possible danger!" Harry shot back, "This man shot the mark up into the sky."

"What? Let me see, boy," The man demanded, "Hm, I've never seen him before."

"That's Barty Crouch junior. Who should have died twelve years ago at Azkaban," Sirius stated furiously, "Kingsley, I want Barty Crouch senior, junior and the house elf arrested and interrogated. This will not be hushed up. I want the full truth!" Sirius ordered, "Harry, good work."

"Thanks, Uncle Sirius," Harry said, "Did you get the ones that caused the panic?"

"One. The others apparated away when the Dark Mark appeared in the sky. But I think a nice little chat under veritaserum will get us some more names," Sirius said grinning.

"Good to hear. Well, I guess Cedric and I should take the others back now that the bastards fled. Do you know where Mum and Dad are?" Harry asked.

"They should be back at the campsite when you get back. They helped us freeing the muggles before the Death Eaters apparated away. Lily put the fear of Morgana in them," Sirius answered cackling a bit.

It was a well-known fact that Lily Potter was a formidable witch and one of the most powerful alive. Pissing her off was even considered a sign of insanity and the one doing it was recommended for a mental check at St. Mungo's. The only ones to do it and get away with minor injuries were James, Sirius and Remus, Though Remus rarely got on her bad side. He was too smart to do so.

"I guess she would. I'll see you later, Uncle Sirius," Harry stated.

* * *

The aftermath of the riot at the Quidditch World Cup was interesting and annoying at the same time. Harry was hailed as a hero for being the one to catch the one that fired the Dark Mark into the sky. As the older brother to the Boy-Who-Lived, he was already well-known and now he had added another impressive feat to his name. The Quidditch fans of course knew that the English team had tried to recruit him, but had failed, thanks to Lily Potter. Barty Crouch senior and junior, after being interrogated under veritaserum, were sent to Azkaban. Junior for his already decided punishment and senior for the breaking out of his Death Eater son and the use of the imperius curse. The caught Death Eater, Bertram Yaxley, gave up the names of four other Death Eaters, much to Sirius' disappointment Lucius Malfoy wasn't one of them. The bastard was still too sly to get caught.

Of course, Rita Skeeter tried to push all the blame for the security issues on the Ministry, but it wasn't going as well as she hoped. After all, Sirius had arrested three Death Eaters by now, two were hunted down after they had been named by Yaxley, and Minister Fudge didn't dare protesting, thanks to Sirius being a really nasty opponent. Not to forget his backing through the Potters.

While some of Fudge's financial backers were now hunted down, it would be political suicide to interfere in a Death Eater hunt. Harry meanwhile, after backing Sirius on the official press conference of the DMLE, had holed himself up at his parents' house to avoid being mobbed by the press. He knew this would blow over after a week normally. It would be forgotten in the upcoming Death Eater trials, which he wasn't involved in at all.

Harry was now trying to figure out how he would possibly be able to coordinate all of his duties next school year. For whatever reason, he had been named headboy. He had been so sure Cedric would get that badge. He was after all much better at avoiding trouble than Harry was. He was a goody Hufflepuff for Merlin's sake. But perhaps McGonagall had more influence than he had thought. She was his biggest fan after all.

Or the manipulative headmaster wanted to better his relationship with the Potters again. Since Aaron had arrived at school, something had happened every year and, let's just say, he had been a big part in Lily Potter's current reputation. Dumbledore had tried to have the Potters concentrate on Aaron, as he was the Boy-Who-Lived and subject to some crackpot prophecy. Thankfully Lily didn't buy into Divination and James also didn't think much of the subject. They had only increased the security precautions and continued living their lives. With more defence training for their children included of course.

Harry now was headboy and Quidditch Captain. It would be interesting to coordinate that with his studies for his NEWTs. Well, he would cross that bridge when he reached it.

* * *

It was evening and all students of Hogwarts were assembled for the feast that always started the new school year. The new first years had all been sorted and everybody had enjoyed the feast. Now they were waiting for Dumbledore to give the annual announcements. And they were interesting to say the least. While there was a lot of protest for cancelling the Quidditch season, the excitement over the Triwizard Tournament was bigger. While many were outraged over the underage exclusion rule, most started speculating who might become the Hogwarts champion.

"Are you going to enter, Harry?" Aaron asked his brother on the way to the common room.

"Perhaps. I will think about it, but the prospect excites me and it's not like I had Quidditch to look forward to this year," Harry answered.

"It would be really cool if you became Hogwarts champion," Aaron said, and his friends nodded.

"Thanks. We will see who becomes champion in the end," Harry said smiling.

* * *

The day before Halloween the delegations of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrived. Harry had a stare down with Viktor Krum. It was common knowledge that Harry should have played the World Cup for England, if it had not been for his mother. Perhaps he would be able to have a one-on-one match with the Bulgarian seeker. It would definitely be a great opportunity. But more interesting than the Bulgarian seeker was one of the French girls. She had to have some Veela blood in her, judging by the number of boys that made fools of themselves over her. Harry was immune to the Veela allure thanks to his Occlumency training. It was one of the things his uncle Sirius had taught him and Aaron. The younger ones were just starting in the mental discipline. House Black had always been masters in the mind arts, due to their paranoia of losing their family secrets if the members of the house didn't learn Occlumency. And Sirius Black was acknowledged as one of the best the house had ever produced.

But Harry found the girl to be pleasant to look at, even without counting in the allure. If she was nice, he might want to get to know her better. For some reason, he had problems finding a girlfriend that liked him for him, not his family's name, wealth, his Quidditch popularity or his brother's fame. It was annoying how often it had happened that he found out about things like that. Not to mention that he automatically excluded girls that were too closely related to him. He would not date a cousin. He shuddered at the mere thought. Perhaps dating a foreign girl would help there. He gave the girl a charming smile without trying to get close. If she really was part Veela, she wouldn't like boys who made fools of themselves. Her surprised look seeing him proved him somewhat right.

* * *

Finally, after another great feast, which included specialties from other countries this time as well as classic English food, it was time for the opening of the Tournament. Dumbledore explained how one would go about becoming champion and warned everybody to not lightly put his or her name into the Goblet of Fire, as it would set up a binding magical contract and the chosen champions had to compete with no chance to get out. On the way out, Harry had to interfere with headmaster Karkaroff getting too close to Aaron. The fact that Mad-Eye Moody was the Defence Professor this year made for a very entertaining reaction from Karkaroff. He looked slightly jumpy. Harry used the chance to ask Krum for a seeker challenge.

"Hey, Krum. What do you think about doing a seeker challenge against me?" Harry asked.

"You're Harry Potter, right?" Krum asked, "The one that is said to be as good as me?"

"The same. I would like to get a real challenge, especially as we don't have the Quidditch Cup this year and I want to go professional next year," Harry confirmed.

"I agree. I vill prove I am the best," Krum said nodding.

"Great, what do you think, in two weeks on Saturday?" Harry suggested.

"Yes, that vill do," Krum nodded, and the two boys shook hands on it, "Vill you enter the Tournament, Potter?"

"Yes, I will put my name into the goblet. We will see if I am chosen," Harry confirmed.

"Ve vill indeed see," Krum said and then the Durmstrang delegation left for their ship.

"Wow, Harry. You are going to fly against Viktor Krum!" Fred Weasley said impressed.

"No shit, we should get omnioculars and sell the recordings," George added.

"I get 10 % of the profit and one omniocular for myself," Harry told them.

"Deal!" Crowed the twins together and rushed off to order the omnioculars and to recruit others to record the showdown of the century.

"Only you, Harry," Cedric, who had come over from the Hufflepuff table, said shaking his head.

"Hey, nobody said I couldn't take advantage of something the twins would do anyway," Harry commented snickering.

"True, so you are going to put your name up too," Cedric stated.

"Yep. I have thought about it and I will manage to do my NEWTs and the Tournament at the same time easily I figured, as I have nearly all the spells down anyway that we will learn this year," Harry replied, "So you're going to enter too?"

"Yes, I guess we will find out tomorrow who will become Hogwarts champion. But no matter, we will support each other, right?" Cedric asked.

"Of course. No matter who of us will be chosen, the other will help him win the Tournament," Harry confirmed.

After that they separated to go back to their respective common rooms.

* * *

 **Until tomorrow.**


	2. It should only count to three!

**Here, as promised, is chapter two. Thanks for the nice comments you left and to those that favoured this story. One with it now.**

* * *

 **It should only count to three!**

It was evening and the traditional Halloween feast was coming to an end. Everybody was excited about the soon to happen choosing of the champions. Once the desserts had vanished from the tables, Dumbledore dimmed the lights so far that only the blue flames of the Goblet of Fire lit the Hall.

"I think the Goblet will soon be ready to show us the results," Dumbledore said and indeed a few seconds after he said that the fire turned red and a piece of parchment was shot into the air from the fire.

"The champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Krum," Dumbledore announced.

The Durmstrang students applauded and Karkaroff loudly proclaimed how he had known that Krum had it in him. Krum walked up to the head table and was directed to the antechamber to wait there. Meanwhile the fire had turned blue again and the audience waited impatiently for the next champion to the chosen. The fire turned red again and the next piece of parchment flew out. Dumbledore caught it.

"The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour," He called out and the beautiful girl Harry had noticed before stood up gracefully and walked up to the head table. She followed the path of Krum.

Now the air could have been cut with a knife while the students were waiting for the Hogwarts champion to be announced. The fire turned red again and Dumbledore caught the last piece of parchment.

"The Hogwarts champion is Harry Potter," He said, and the Gryffindor table erupted in cheers and Harry stood up beaming and walking up to the head table. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw also clapped happily, as Harry was popular in those houses too, except for when they had to play Quidditch against him.

* * *

Harry met the other two champions and they waited for the heads of the schools, Bagman and Wintergold, the new head of the Department of International Cooperation, now that Crouch was at Azkaban, to arrive and tell them about the first task. To his immense surprise not the adults, but his little brother Aaron came down, looking pale as a ghost.

"Aaron, what happened?" Harry asked concerned.

"Harry, my, my name, the goblet," Aaron stammered shocked, "I swear I didn't."

"Breathe Aaron," Harry said calmly, trying to sooth his brother's nerves.

He heard the officials arriving and shouting between some people.

"That's a scandal! Hogwarts can't have two champions!" Karkaroff thundered.

"'E is right, Dumblydorr," Madame Maxime added, "'Ad we known that more zen one champion would be chosen, we would 'ave brought a wider selection of students."

Dumbledore strode towards Aaron, only to be blocked by Harry. He gave the older Potter an incredulous look. Harry coldly stared back at all of the adults, making them shiver under his penetrating glare. Many just now really realized that this was Lily Potter's son.

"Aaron is innocent, and you would all realize it, if you only looked upon it after calming down," Harry stated coldly, "The Goblet of Fire is an Ancient artefact that was enchanted to choose one champion from each participating school. And the enchantment only included three schools since the beginning. Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The goblet chose those three champions, namely Viktor, Fleur and me. Aaron is a fourth-year student and knows nothing about enchanting, hell, even I wouldn't be able to make the goblet believe that is has to choose a fourth champion and I am the most powerful student that there currently is at Hogwarts. For this to work, the one who did it had to completely overpower the original enchantments, meaning he had to have a fully matured magical core. No student fulfils that requirement. Which also means that asking an older student to set him up as a fourth champion wouldn't work."

This struck all those that had protested before heavily.

"What interests me more is the way how the goblet could have been accessed and the spell placed on it. It was stored at the Ministry before it was brought to Hogwarts just yesterday, as the rules demand. That means either somebody at the Ministry, during the transport or here at Hogwarts must have been the one to tamper with the goblet. Before you start accusing my brother of something he couldn't have done, start looking for the real culprit and the motives behind this incident. And you would do well to find a way to get Aaron out of the Tournament before my letter to my mother reaches our home tomorrow morning, or you will find out just why my father never even tries to argue with her when she is furious," Harry added, making the adults gulp.

"As much as it saddens me, Mr Potter, your brother is bound by the magical contract of the goblet. As soon as a name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, the one is chosen as a champion and has to compete. Those are the rules," Wintergold pointed out timidly, "The only way out would be forfeiting his magic and I am sure nobody wants to go that way."

Harry growled.

"Fine, it's your funeral," Harry declared, "As Aaron was entered against his will, how will you make up for your inability to protect the younger students from being entered in a Tournament that is far above their skill level, headmaster?"

"Now my boy, there is no need to be this hostile," Dumbledore tried to placate Harry, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. Harry had inherited Lily's temper.

"Don't come me with that kind of platitudes, Dumbledore!" Harry roared, "This Tournament has been stopped because there were too many casualties in the past! My brother is just fourteen. He is three years behind the other students in this tournament. And none of you seems to even care about his safety! Bagman is already figuring out how to use Aaron's fame to make this farce more interesting, Wintergold is no doubt happy to have a famous name to take away attention from the Crouch affair that has his department in a bad light. Maxime and Karkaroff, while understandably angry that their schools have one champion less, don't even consider that Aaron is the victim in this. And you will try to use him to lure the one who did this out and will let things run their course without offering any assistance, like in the years previous. Forget it. As heir to House Potter I demand that, for the endangerment of one of my house's members, he will be allowed to call in any tutors to prepare for the Tournament that he needs!" Harry's aura was now showing.

All of the adults were gasping at how much power Harry showed. Never had they thought that a seventeen-year-old boy could have that much power in him. They really didn't want to be on this boy's bad side. And to think that he wasn't at the peak of his power. His mother was already bad enough when she lost her temper. They had the bad feeling that he would be even worse than her, once he reached his magical maturity.

"In the name of the Ministry I will make sure that your brother will get tutors here," Wintergold hastily said.

"I will send word to my parents to choose suitable ones. Nobody but them will have a say in who they choose. I don't trust anybody here at the moment. Nobody besides the teachers or the visiting Ministry officials would have been able to trick the goblet, so in my eyes you are all suspicious right now," Harry stated.

"Good to see that somebody practices constant vigilance," Moody commented nodding appreciatively.

"Moody," Karkaroff sneered, "Thinking up new conspiracy theories, are you?"

"You shut up right now; you are at the top of my list, Karkaroff!" Harry snapped, his green eyes glowing with power, "Don't think I wouldn't know about your past. My godfather is the head auror if you forgot."

Karkaroff shut his mouth at once.

"Now, we will investigate this unfortunate incident, but we still need to inform the champions of the first task," Wintergold said.

Harry stared at the man but realized that for now he wouldn't be able to do anything, so he took some deep breaths to bring his aura under control again. After two minutes the aura receded again, and he only had the glowing eyes left.

"Well, let's start. The first task is at the 24th November and is meant to rest your daring in face of the unknown. You will only be armed with your wand, your courage and your mind. More information will be provided directly before the task," Wintergold explained, shrinking under Harry's glare. That boy was perhaps even scarier than his mother.

Harry led Aaron out not caring for the calls of Dumbledore to stay with him. He had a letter to write so that his mother's wrath would come upon the idiots that called themselves responsible adults.

* * *

The next morning Harry strode in front of the entire Great Hall. The reception in Gryffindor Tower had made him see how urgently he needed to set people strait. Dumbledore wouldn't bother, he knew. He cast a sonorus at himself to be heard.

"Alright, listen everybody! I want to clear up some misconceptions about what happened last night, as many people seem to be unable to count to three and find nothing wrong if an ancient artefact that has only ever counted to three suddenly learned to count to four," He said sarcastically, "The Goblet of Fire by itself would never have chosen four champions if not for an adult with a fully mature core tempering with it. Therefore, forget the idiotic notion that Aaron could have cheated his way into the Tournament. I will personally come after everybody who thinks that giving my brother a hard time over being entered in a Tournament that has taken the lives of the participants in the past, when he is three years younger than the regular champions, is a smart thing to do. Aaron is forced to see through the Tournament, even if he doesn't want to, thanks to the contract being binding. He can't back out or he will lose his magic. So, think twice if you really want to be in his place right now. Quietus."

Harry walked back to the Gryffindor table, leaving a stumped student population behind. Harry made a point by ignoring anybody asking stupid questions while he ate breakfast. From the corner of his eye he saw that Dumbledore for some reason didn't seem happy with his display. Well, his problem, not Harry's. He would protect his brother, no matter what others said.

When the students were about to leave to spend their day how they wanted, the doors of the Great Hall flew open and a very furious red-haired woman and an only slightly less scary looking black-haired man with glasses entered the Hall. Harry smirked. This promised to be entertaining.

"Albus Dumbledore!" Lily Potter shouted.

The students saw the headmaster pale a little, probably remembering what she had done to him after Aaron's first year. She had won his wand from him, which, according to rumours, was kept at Potter Manor now.

"Lily and James, how nice to join us, why don't you follow me to my office so that we can discuss the problem?" Dumbledore tried to avoid being embarrassed in front of the whole school.

"Don't talk like you had done nothing wrong!" She yelled back and stomped towards the head table, "How could my fourteen years old son be entered against his will, while you promised to make sure that no underage student could enter the Tournament? It was the only reason the Board of Governors permitted the Tournament to be reinstated."

"Indeed, I am here as a representative of the Board and I am very interested how this could have happened. From my son's letter, I know how despicable you behaved yesterday. Harry entered on his own and I am damn proud that he was chosen as Hogwarts champion, but Aaron should never have been forced to participate and on top of that have everybody scorn him, accuse him falsely and force Harry to lose his temper to protect him," James added.

The students had the impression that those that had been witness to Harry's outburst were gulping thinking about the power he had displayed. And seeing his parents now standing up to Albus Dumbledore, who was believed to be the most powerful wizard in Great Britain, in the middle of the Great Hall at that, they had no doubt where Harry got his power from. They looked from the Potter parents to Dumbledore to Harry, who had somehow got a bowl of popcorn and was happily munching it, watching the scene unfold. Many sweat-dropped at that casual display.

"I assure you, we are investigating how Aaron's name came out of the Goblet, but I think we shouldn't continue with this display in front of the students," Dumbledore again tried to reason.

"Oh, I don't think that your investigation will be enough. We have seen too often over the last few years what you call investigation," Lily mocked, "No, we will have Sirius send a handpicked team. We will get to the bottom of this."

Dumbledore knew that he couldn't divert this in any way. Lily Potter was a force of nature if she wanted to be and it seemed that he had underestimated her oldest son badly. While he had known that the boy was good at school and powerful, he hadn't expected the raw strength he possessed. Harry Potter was probably more powerful than he had been at that age at school. Yesterday had been an eye-opening experience and he was slightly afraid that the boy was so uncontrollable to him. While he didn't fear that he could go dark, Harry was firmly against using the dark arts, he immensely disliked if a powerful wizard wasn't under his control. Now he needed to do damage control. He finally managed to get the two Potter parents to follow him into his office. He was sure that this would develop into a major headache. And using the incident to test Aaron Potter had looked like such a good idea in the beginning.

* * *

Harry had taken up the responsibility of training his younger siblings, now more than ever. While Aaron was in the Tournament, Jasmine and Dahlia also could become a target fast. So, he set apart three hours on Monday evening to teach all of them new spells that were useful in defending themselves or, in Aaron's case, to survive the Tournament. First were all those that he knew worked against magical creatures. He had researched the Tournament before entering his name, so he knew that facing one creature or another was always part of it. He just hoped that the creatures wouldn't be too difficult to get past. But with wizarding stupidity there was no telling, especially not with Fudge as Minister and Bagman as Head of Magical Sports. He knew that Aaron would also get trained by their father on the weekends, therefore he would have a chance to get through the event alive and hopefully unharmed.

Harry was also doing his NEWT preparation simultaneously. He knew that this year would be really hard, but it would be the end result that counted. Being Triwizard Champion would look good on his CV, once he applied for a job somewhere. He estimated that he could probably play Quidditch professionally, if he didn't suffer a crippling injury that was, which was rare with magical healing, for at most twenty years. Playing professionally, if you were good, got you a fantastic salary. Normally you were paid about 500 galleons per month that the season was going on. Meaning eight months of the year. And that was for starting players in the lower teams. A starting player of a team like Puddlemere United was said to earn triple of that amount. Without taking bonuses for winning matches, championships and making it into the European League into consideration. That was on top. Now, if you were smart enough to save those salaries, you were set for life. There were examples of others like Bagman though, who was a gambling addict, who had lost most of his earned gold form his time as a beater.

Harry knew that, while the Potters were well-off, they weren't as rich as for example the Malfoys. They would never have to fear poverty, but they couldn't afford throwing their money out of the window like the Malfoys did. For that reason, Harry wanted to have a well-paying job once he had graduated. He had already discussed his plans with his parents. He would accept a lucrative offer for playing Quidditch after graduating and at the same time he would study becoming a healer. He knew that he had the grades and normally Quidditch training only took half of a day. Thus, he could study the other half of the day. His father had a friend at St. Mungo's that was a healer and he had told Harry how healer training worked. It was a lot of self-study combined with learning under an experienced healer. If Harry did the practical parts during the four months that the Quidditch season wasn't going on, he would finish his training after approximately five years instead of the normal three. From there on, he could specialize in a certain area. Harry knew that while playing Quidditch was great, he wouldn't want to do nothing else with his life.

Hence why he had taken Arithmancy and Ancient Runes to prepare for his career path. Additionally, he needed Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was a huge workload, but he had managed it. He had got O's in all OWLs except Astronomy and History, where he had scored E and had easily qualified for the seven subjects to take in his NEWTs. He had also dropped Care of Magical Creatures, as, while he liked the subject, it was too much of a workload to continue.

Finally, after the three hours were over, he and his siblings went back to the Gryffindor common room. They would go to their dorms, take a shower and work on a bit of homework.

* * *

During the Hogsmeade weekend directly before the first task, Hagrid told Aaron to come to his hut at eleven and to use his invisibility cloak. You see, James had first given the cloak to Harry, but when he had become proficient with disillusionment spells, he had given it to Aaron. That had been in Aaron's second year. With Aaron's tendency to stumble across trouble, Harry insisted that Aaron kept the cloak on his person the whole time. Aaron asked Harry if he should go and Harry encouraged him and told him that he would accompany him disillusioned. While Harry didn't doubt that Hagrid didn't mean Aaron any danger, Hagrid's idea of dangerous was vastly different from anybody else's. Therefore, with silencing spells on them both, on top of Harry's disillusionment charm, they set off to follow Hagrid.

Harry couldn't believe where they followed Hagrid and Madame Maxime. Inside a clearing in the Forbidden Forest were four dragons. He now was sure that the Ministry was completely insane. Nesting mother dragons were known to kill anything that came too close to their eggs. Perhaps this really was a plot to get Aaron killed, but, somehow, he didn't think so. There were easier ways to accomplish that. He could tell that Aaron was scared out of his wits. No wonder, he wasn't sure how to feel about facing a dragon and he had signed up for this voluntarily. Well, at least now he could specify the training.

After ensuring that Aaron wasn't about to throw up as soon as he opened his mouth, Harry sat down with his brother to talk about the possible strategies to get past a dragon. He was just glad that he kept some calming potion stocked up at all times. His mother had drilled into the heads of all her children, plus her husband and his friends, that no matter what, any situation could be solved if you thought about it calmly. And in doubt, a calming potion could achieve that state of mind.

"Alright, the most important part of this is to not go into a blind panic. You will get hurt if you do. For you it is most important to concentrate on doing things the simple way. The spells that work best against a magical creature as powerful as a dragon are too magically draining for you to attempt right now. So, we will go with something you can do. First, if the dragon doesn't see you, it can't aim properly. Therefore, you will need to use the disillusionment charm. It is normally a sixth-year spell, but I'm sure you will be fine. You are already close to mastering it. Next is scent erasing and you have that one mastered. Silencing spell is the same," Harry calmly explained, and Aaron started to calm down, "Now, only not being noticed by the dragon's senses isn't enough. You will need to produce a distraction of some kind. The dragon needs to leave her nest to give you a chance to steal whatever it is they have the dragon protect. You can either go for something appealing to the dragon or something it sees as a threat. But if you go with the threat thing, be prepared for the dragon lashing out around her."

"I hope I can do this. I am scared, Harry. I didn't want to be in this," Aaron said in a low voice.

"I know, little brother, but we will get you through this as best as we can," Harry promised putting an arm around his brother's shoulders.

"How will you tackle the dragon?" Aaron wanted to know.

"Trying to make it go to sleep. There are several ways for that. You know I don't like using violence when I don't need to, and I think it is really bad taste to make a mother fear for the safety of her young. And that all for a stupid event like the Triwizard Tournament," Harry growled.

Aaron nodded, that was typical for his brother. It was the major reason why Harry, with all of his talent and power, had decided to study becoming a healer, instead of going for the position of auror that Aaron was aiming for.


	3. Dragons And Harry's Tricks

**One Dragon -Two Dragons … And Harry's Tricks**

It was the day for the first task. Aaron had got the disillusionment charm mastered yesterday and was proficient in the distraction spells he was going to use. He still was really nervous. His parents had come for the task and had promised him that they were all ready to protect him if it became necessary. Harry also had a serious look on his face. They only had the concern of which dragon Aaron was going to face. He would probably be okay with one of the less naturally vicious breeds, but the Chinese Fireball and the Hungarian Horntail would be a huge problem. Hence, Harry had a plan in mind. He wouldn't call it cheating, only evening out the odds. He had heard from his father that the Ministry had enchanted miniature models of the dragons. So, if he managed to draw either the Horntail or the Fireball himself, and have Krum draw the other, Aaron would manage. While making a vicious breed fall asleep would be much harder, he had the raw power to succeed.

Finally, they were all told to go down to the champions' tent. Aaron stayed next to Harry. Both their uniforms looked alike, representing the Hogwarts and Gryffindor colours. On the backs, there were H. Potter for Harry and A. Potter for Aaron. Once inside the tent, Harry kept a hand on Aaron's shoulder to keep him as calm as possible. One sharp look at Bagman made the ridiculously eager man shrink into himself and keep his distance from Aaron. How could he be this chipper when they were about to face dragons? The man must be disturbed in the head from getting hit with too many bludgers. Finally, it was time to be 'officially' informed about the task. Judging from the looks on Fleur's and Viktor's faces they had known about the task beforehand as well. It wasn't really surprising, as Hagrid had shown Madame Maxime the dragons and Karkaroff always sneaked around somewhere.

Thankfully, even Rita Skeeter, the reporter that was covering the Triwizard Tournament for the Daily Prophet knew better than to anger Harry Potter. Or write anything that could direct Lily Potter's fury towards her. While she had written about the irregularity of the fourth champion being chosen, she had also pointed out that the investigation of the Goblet of Fire had shown that somebody whose magical signature wasn't connected to any of the champions, nor any student of Hogwarts, had tempered with the goblet.

Statements from the auror office were printed, saying that the Goblet had been manipulated long before it was set up at Hogwarts. The unspeakables, without a doubt the leading authority for any kind of obscure and little-known magic, could determine that the switch in the number of participants had been performed sometime in September. And nobody had thought to check the Goblet of Fire before it was set up at Hogwarts. It had been tested and proven workable the fifth of September, the tempering happened afterwards. It led to the aurors trying to match the recorded magical signature from the Goblet with any known witch or wizard in the country, but it was slow-going.

Her biting comments concentrated on how security measures during the period of time when the pieces of parchment with the names could be entered had been neglected by Dumbledore and how the Ministry should have ensured that the Goblet wasn't accessible before it was sent to Hogwarts. The last part put Bagman into a really problematic position, as his department had been in charge of the Goblet of Fire before it was brought to Hogwarts. Rita also found out that a member of his department, one Bertha Jorkins, was missing and had been for months. Bagman got fire from all sides. Harry knew from Sirius that Bagman would have been obliged to report her missing once she hadn't returned a week after the planned date. But he still claimed she would turn up soon, probably thinking it was still August.

Sirius didn't believe that and had put her onto the missing people list. The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol was tasked with investigating hints of her possible whereabouts. As long as no involvement of dark magic or dark wizards was indicated, it wasn't a job for the auror department yet. Thankfully, Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement shared his opinion and was on guard for any kind of suspicious behaviour. But, as once the tempering with the Goblet was finished everybody that was at least seventeen years of age could have put Aaron's name into the Goblet, it was doubtful they would ever find out who did it. It could even have been some seventh-year who was put under imperius curse. That one was very hard to detect, and even harder to overcome.

"So, now that we are all here, let's get to the task you will have to finish. Your task is to get the golden egg, while getting past an opponent. There are different err varieties. So, who wants to go first?" Bagman asked.

Harry stepped forward as this would suit him perfectly to make sure that Aaron didn't get a vicious breed.

"Alright, Mr Potter," Bagman said and held the bag up to Harry.

Harry put his hand into it and performed a quick scan, which he had looked up before this task to have a way to ensure that he could ensure that Aaron wouldn't get too bad an opponent, then he put one of the wandless charms he knew on the model that felt the least vicious and put the counterpart of it on Aaron without anybody noticing. He pulled his hand out and was faced with the Chinese Fireball. Next up was Fleur who got the Swedish Shortsnout. Krum was next and flinched when he pulled out the Hungarian Horntail. Aaron then pulled out the last one, the Welsh Green. Now the order was Fleur, Aaron, Harry and Viktor.

When Fleur went outside, Harry took Aaron over to a bench and had him sit down there, before he went through mental calming exercises with Aaron. He knew that Aaron wasn't a coward, but he had never been confronted with a situation like this. Harry had blocked most of those things or their parents had. It had been the right thing to do. Aaron had enough to deal with, thanks to his fame. While the Potters hadn't kept their children in the dark about important things, there were some things that children had to be protected from experiencing. And being in mortal danger belonged into that category. Once Aaron was out of the tent, Harry forced himself to stay calm.

"You really vorry about him," He heard Viktor say. He turned around and saw his competitor standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I do. He is my little brother and he has got more than enough on his plate that he doesn't need this shit. And honestly, I have problems thinking about facing a dragon; I don't want to imagine how much he has to struggle to suppress his fear like he does," Harry answered.

"You felt for the dangerous dragons in the bag, didn't you?" Viktor asked.

"If my drawing one of the more vicious breeds increases Aaron's chance to survive this insane task, I will gladly take the danger on me," Harry declared, realising that Viktor was more perceptive than he had expected. To be fair, he had been a bit too busy to really get to know his fellow champions much.

He wouldn't admit to making sure that Aaron got a less vicious dragon. Neither would he reveal that he could use some wandless magic. It was a good ace in the hole.

"I understand. I vould do the same for my sister," Viktor said and got a smile from Harry.

With all the distractions about the task and Aaron's involvement in the Tournament they hadn't got to do their seeker showdown.

"We still have to do that challenge," Harry mentioned.

"Yes, let's do it after the task," Viktor agreed, and they shook hands on it.

Then applause and cheering was heard.

"And our youngest champion has his egg in an impressive show of ingeniousness," They heard Bagman call out.

"Thank Merlin, he is safe," Harry brought out relieved, "Now I can concentrate on my dragon."

"You better should. Good luck," Viktor said.

"Same to you," Harry said and walked out of the tent when his name was called.

He carefully entered the arena and quickly spotted some red accentuated against the rocks and the high walls. He put a disillusionment charm on himself and sneaked away, trying to not startle the dragon. His first plan depended on keeping the dragon as calm as possible to have an easier time to use his secret weapon. He had never told anybody, but he had a gift with voice magic. Hence why, for him, the easiest way to deal with the dragon would be combining sleeping runes, herbs that were used in sleeping potions and his voice. He silently summoned a bag with the herbs and stones with the runes etched into them that he had prepared. He had put invisibility charms on it beforehand. The dragon wouldn't notice it. He prepared the area for his needs keeping as quiet as possible. Once the dragon was surrounded by the herbs and the runes he started to sing.

* * *

James and Lily Potter were surprised when they heard the voice of their oldest son singing an old lullaby. It was Beautiful and they felt themselves calming down without trying to.

"I didn't know that he had inherited that particular gift," James said touched, "My grandmother had it too. That's one of the lullabies she always sang for me when I slept over at my grandparents' house."

"It's so beautiful. But could he really sing a dragon to sleep?" Lily asked.

"No, not without additional support, but I think I can smell some herbs that work in sleeping potions," Remus commented, sitting next to them, "He must have decided to combine several aspects to make his dragon fall asleep. It's quite ingenious."

"I think he put up a runic field as well, there are some stones that are subtly glowing all over the field," Sirius added, looking closely onto his godson's performance down there.

"Put together that might work," James nodded proud of his son's idea, crossing his fingers that it would work like Harry had planned.

* * *

Harry watched satisfied how the dragon fell asleep. He didn't stop singing when he slowly approached the nest. He carefully took the golden egg without disturbing the real eggs. He walked away equally slowly, knowing that rushing things would end badly. Finally, he was out of the reach of the dragon and cancelled the disillusionment charm and the runic field by summoning the stones to him. He held up the egg and cheers and applause thundered around him, waking up the dragon.

"Now that's how it is done folks. The Hogwarts champion Harry Potter managed to get his egg without a fight and without getting injured. In fact, I doubt his dragon even knew that he was there," Bagman commented. "Now let's see what the judges think about this performance."

Harry looked at the judges. Madame Maxime was first and put up a ten. That was a good start. Mr Wintergold also held up a ten as did Dumbledore and Bagman. Karkaroff looked green but put an eight up. Biased bastard, but with forty-eight points he should be in first place normally. Harry waved smiling to the audience before he was pulled to the side by Madam Pomfrey who simply didn't want to believe that he got away without any injury if she didn't check it for herself. After she did, she gave him a smile and let him go watch the last champion go against the dragon.

Harry went to sit with Fleur and Aaron.

"Congratulations, Harry. You were fantastic," Aaron exclaimed cheerily.

Now that he had the task done, he was much happier.

"Thank you, Aaron. Did your attempt work out for you?" Harry asked.

"Yes, you were right, distracting a powerful creature and sneaking past it worked well. Dobby really went out of his way to help me. My dragon was more interested in the feast I summoned from the place I stored it than me," Aaron said happily, "I only had to perform the charm to increase the smell and it went for it. I could sneak up to the nest and take the golden egg and get away before she was finished eating."

"That's great. I'm happy you did well. How did you approach the task, Fleur?" Harry asked.

"I 'ad a similar idea as you. I used my veela heritage to strengthen a sleeping charm, but sadly my dragon snored. I put out ze fire on my skirt wizout problem, but it cost me points," Fleur said slightly annoyed.

"It still was a good idea. How many points did you two get?" Harry wanted to know.

"I got thirty-seven and Aaron got thirty-nine," Fleur said.

"I think I lost some because it wasn't 'showy' enough for Bagman and Karkaroff," stated Aaron, "I couldn't care less for the biased judging from Karkaroff. I survived and wasn't hurt, that's what counts for me," stated Aaron with conviction, which Harry could only agree with.

Then Viktor was called, and they concentrated on the arena. Then something Harry didn't like at all happened. Viktor had obviously decided on the power approach and sent a conjunctivitis curse at the Horntail's eyes. The dragon howled in pain when the spell hit. And then to Harry's horror she stumbled towards the nest. The eggs would be crushed if she got there. He acted on instinct, calling up his magic and summoning the real eggs out of the way of harm. He was just in time to save four of the five eggs, but one sadly got hit by the dragon's tail and got smashed.

"Damn, I wasn't fast enough!" Harry moaned.

He continued to pull the eggs out of harm's way and then looked how the Horntail was trying to still hit Viktor. He had immense problems keeping out of the way of the beating tail. He managed to get past the dragon and got the egg, but then the tail hit, and Viktor flew crashing into one of the walls. It looked really painful. One of the spikes of the tail had also hit and the shoulder was bleeding dangerously. Harry saw that Aaron was chalk-white.

"That's the reason why I warned you against angering your dragon, Aaron. They are physically much stronger than us. Their magic is also special and they are an endangered species. The organisers should never have brought real eggs here where they could be in harm's way," Harry told his brother.

Aaron again swore to never dismiss his older brother's advice. Had he tried to distract the dragon with something that threatened the eggs, like a predator, he could have been caught in her lashing out against everything.

Fleur observed the Potter brothers closely. She could see that they were quite close. There was no jealousy from Harry Potter towards his younger brother's fame. And Aaron seemed to be a really nice boy. Their relationship reminded her of her and Gabrielle's bond. Aaron clearly looked up to Harry, and why shouldn't he? Harry Potter was basically the perfect wizard. Powerful, smart and compassionate, but with a high moral code. On top of that he was gorgeous. She wouldn't mind getting to know him better. After all, there were really few men that weren't affected by her allure. And here he was, conversing normally with her.

Viktor had to be treated by Madam Pomfrey before he could see his marks. Bagman gave a six, Madame Maxime a five, Dumbledore a six, Wintergold a five and Karkaroff showed his bias and gave him a ten, which caused massive booing from the audience. Then a red-haired man who was one of the dragon handlers came over to them and looked at Harry.

"I wanted to thank you for your quick reaction that saved four of the five eggs of the Horntail, Mr Potter. The dragon preserve is in your debt for saving four future dragons of such an endangered species," He said.

"You're Charlie Weasley, aren't you?" Harry asked, remembering how he and Fred had smuggled Norbert out to go to Charlie. Charlie nodded. "I gladly helped. I simply hate it if anybody, not matter if creature or human being, dies unnecessarily."

Charlie looked happy to hear that and levitated the eggs away, following the group that had stunned the Horntail which had still been rampaging around.

* * *

Once the audience had been informed about the date of the second task, the champions were called inside the tent. Viktor was lying on a bed, wrapped in bandages. He was also a bit dazed, probably from a pain potion.

"Ah, you're all here, that's good. As you probably heard a few minutes ago, the next task will be on the twenty-fourth of February. We are going to give you something to do for that time," Wintergold commented, "The golden eggs that you collected are more than the objective to the task, they also hold the clue that you need to prepare for the next task. Now I wish you a good day, I think you all will want to see your friends and celebrate your success in the task."

It was obviously more directed towards Harry, Aaron and Fleur. Viktor didn't really seem to be able to comprehend what was being said. Well, Harry hoped that he would get better soon. They still had that challenge to see who the better seeker was and with how the dragon had hit him, Harry considered him punished enough for his stupid attempt.

* * *

When Harry and Aaron walked back to the school, they were met by their friends and families. James, Sirius and Remus told them how proud they were of them and Lily fussed over the two boys. Jasmine and Dahlia beamed at how well they had done, and their friends praised their achievements massively. Harry enjoyed all the positive attention. He was pulled away by his friends, after his family had had their share of him, to celebrate his first place in the Tournament ranking. Aaron was the same with his friends, who were just glad that he had done so well in such a dangerous and difficult task.

If anybody noticed people from other houses in the Gryffindor common room during the huge party that had been organised by the Weasley twins, they didn't comment on it. Their Champions had done really well in the task and that had to be celebrated. And it was common knowledge that Harry Potter't best friend was Cedric Diggory from Hufflepuff. He had been seen helping Harry with research in the library, even if Harry had spent lots of time preparing his little brother, to ensure he survived. Thus, Cedric and a few others were considered honourary Gryffindors, outside of Quidditch of Course, but with that on hold this year, nobody cared if they joined in the celebrations. And Gryffindor parties had gained somewhat legendary status.

* * *

Voldemort sat in his hideout looking at Wormtail. While the man was a weak idiot, he had his uses. Mostly his animagus form that was ideal to spy on people as it wasn't noticed. But he was hardly competent. That he had managed to place the imperius curse on one of the people guarding the Goblet of Fire when it was kept at the Department of Magical Games and Sports for a short time was something of a miracle. That had allowed him to let them place the needed modification of the number of participating schools onto the Goblet. Getting the name into the Goblet once the modification was done, was actually simple for Wormtail. His small animagus form easily allowed him to sneak in and put the piece of parchment with Aaron's name into the Goblet of Fire. In the middle of the night, nobody noticed a rat running along the corridors of the school.

How he had hoped to use Barty Crouch junior for his plans, but sadly he had been caught at the World Cup riot by the oldest Potter boy. He had found out About Barty not being dead or at Azkaban by using legilimency on Bertha Jorkins, who he had killed after her use was over. But Barty had been captured again by Harry Potter before he could contact him for the Mission he had in mind. It was infuriating how the Potter family managed to thwart his plans again and again. First Aaron Potter, thanks to the protection of his grandparents' sacrifice and a burst of accidental magic from Harry Potter, had survived his killing curse. Then, when he had been so close to getting the Philosopher's Stone in 1992, again the Potter brothers had stopped his minion Quirrell. Harry had outduelled Quirrell while Aaron had secured the stone. And Harry had only been fourteen at the time. He had enormous potential and huge magical power.

He was a serious threat and needed to be eliminated. While he wasn't the one the prophecy spoke about, he wouldn't let his brother face him alone. Then there was James Potter. He was influential and well-connected. He had upgraded the wards around Potter Manor greatly and even he wouldn't be able to get inside, no matter what he tried. Then Lily Potter, who was more powerful than a mudblood had any right to be. He had heard how she was feared by those that crossed her and her family. Rumours were that she was working for the Department of Mysteries next to the work she did for her and her husband's business. He wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

His plans had only come this far, as Wormtail would do anything to help him along. It had only been a lucky coincidence in combination with an incompetent new auror, who had been fired for this blunder, that Wormtail had managed to escape from Azkaban the year before. The newbie auror had overlooked that Wormtail was an animagus when the quarterly cleaning of the cells in the block took place and had forgotten to place the anti-animagus shackles on him, just using normal ones. With all other prisoners it would have been enough, as the constant dementor presence would have sucked out too much of their magical ability. But desperation and the actually low amount of magic needed to transform into an animagus form made it possible. Wormtail, in a rare flash of intelligence, had transformed into a rat and hurried away from the prison. And honestly, even he, the Dark Lord, would have trouble finding a rat among thousands that infested that place.

Wormtail may be a coward and a mediocre wizard, but he had his uses and had come to him directly after escaping prison, knowing that joining him was the only way to be safe from his former friends, which he had betrayed. Especially the Potters.

Aaron also had a lot of power, though he didn't seem to be as talented as his brother. But still, from what Wormtail had reported about his performance in the first task, he had done really well for his age. He was ranked second in the Tournament after his brother. He would need to think something up for the last task. If Harry continued with his performance, it would be hard to complete the plan. Well, he would see how the second task would go before deciding the final touches.


	4. A Ball to Remember

**A Ball to Remember**

Aaron was shocked. Professor McGonagall had just announced the Yule Ball that was part of the Tournament to his class and he felt like prey in the eyes of the girls. He would better think about who he wanted to go with soon. He didn't want to feel this awkward for long. Thankfully he didn't have problems talking to a girl. It would be hard to be overly shy after growing up around his father and Uncle Sirius. Both were very smooth with women. He knew that Harry would make his move soon. He had the impression that Harry was interested in Fleur Delacour. The two had been seen talking and laughing sometimes after the first task. He didn't mind at all. Fleur was really nice and, contrary to Harry's ex-girlfriends, she wasn't taken by his fame and their family name. The Delacours were one of the influential families in France, so the Potter name didn't mean as much to them as it did to most girls in England.

Harry and Viktor had also finally decided on a date for their challenge. After Harry had chewed out Viktor for a few minutes for risking the dragon eggs, they had put the task behind them and planned on their show down. Aaron thought that all of Hogwarts would be there. How often did you get to see two genius seekers go up against each other? The match would be next Saturday, as it wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend. That one was the weekend after and he could imagine how full Gladrags would be.

The Gryffindor fourth-years were just entering the Great Hall when Aaron's eyes fell on Harry who had a determined look on his face. His face lit up when the Beauxbatons students entered the Hall. Harry smoothly stood up and walked up to Fleur. All eyes were on Harry now.

"Hello Fleur, could I ask for a moment of your time?" Harry asked politely and Fleur nodded smiling.

Harry led her over to an alcove in the corridor and set up a privacy charm. But many were watching as Fleur beamed and nodded to whatever he had asked her. She then gave him a kiss on the cheek. Harry offered her his arm and led her back to the Great Hall. He left her with the Beauxbatons students after kissing her hand and promising to see her later. Aaron saw that Cedric gave Harry a thumbs-up.

"Harry mate, what was that intriguing display about?" Fred Weasley asked.

"Yes, Captain, what is going on between you and the illustrious Mademoiselle Delacour?" George added.

"I just asked her to accompany me to the Yule Ball and she agreed," Harry told them smiling happily.

"Oh, Gred, I think our dear captain has a crush," Fred said.

"Yes, he has that look on his face, Forge," George agreed.

"Be nice you two!" Angelina reprimanded them.

"We wouldn't dare to mess with our captain's relationship!" The twins both exclaimed dramatically.

"You better not," Alicia threw in.

Fred and George knew better than to go against the chaser girls. Even if Alicia was an ex-member of the team, she was still counted as one of the girls. And she was still a reserve player, even if she had decided to concentrate on her studies to manage getting good grades on her OWLs last year.

"Promise on our prankster honour!" Both swore.

"By the way, Angelina, would you give this handsome redhead the honour to come to the ball with me?" Fred addressed Angelina who was surprised.

"Sure," She accepted smiling.

"Alicia, would you go to the ball with me, the way better looking twin?" George addressed the girl he was interested in.

"I'd love to," Alicia agreed.

The twins high-fived and continued talking to Lee.

Aaron envied Harry and the twins about their ease with getting a date for the ball. Well, he would decide whom to ask and then simply do it. It couldn't be that hard, look at the twins.

* * *

Aaron was waiting outside of the Great Hall for the girl he had decided to ask. He just hoped that he wouldn't make a fool of himself. Finally, she and her friends came out of the Hall.

"Excuse me, Sylveena, do you have a minute?" Aaron asked.

Sylveena Esmeraude, a Ravenclaw in his year with long brown hair in a ponytail turned towards him.

"Sure Aaron," She said, and her friends giggled at them.

Thankfully Sylveena followed Aaron a little distance away. How Aaron wished that he knew a privacy spell now. No chickening out now. He steeled himself for what he wanted to do. He had liked Sylveena for a while and they sat next to each other in Charms, therefore he knew a little about her.

"Uhm, Sylveena, would you," here he stocked, but pulled up all of his Gryffindor courage, "would you go to the ball with me?" Aaron asked.

There, he had done it, now he could only hope that she said yes.

"Gladly Aaron. Thanks for asking me," She answered smiling.

"Great. Thanks for agreeing. Would you like me to get you at the entrance of your common room or should we meet in the Entrance Hall?" He asked happy that she had said yes.

"I will meet you in the Entrance Hall," She said.

"The ball starts at eight, will a quarter to eight be alright to meet?" Aaron asked.

"That works for me," She answered.

"There is something else, as a champion I need to open the ball with you. Would you like to practice sometime so that we can get used to how the other one dances? I know that when I learned dancing, it took a while until I got used to different partners," He suggested.

"That's probably a good idea. When do you have time?" She wanted to know.

"I'm normally free Wednesdays after dinner," Aaron answered, "I think I can get Professor McGonagall to let me use an empty classroom for practice."

"Great, then we will see each other Wednesdays at seven?" She asked.

He nodded, and she walked over to her friends who immediately bombarded her with questions. Aaron walked back to Gryffindor Tower happy that he had a date with a girl he liked. He knew that Neville had already asked Hermione and they would be going together. He felt they would make a nice couple. And Hermione was one of the few girls that Neville felt this comfortable around.

* * *

Harry was waiting at the Entrance Hall, clad in a dark blue suit with his family crest stitched onto his right breast pocket in silver, a white silk dress shirt with a silver cravat and black dress shoes. Over it he wore a cloak in the same blue colour held by a silver thread with a clasp that also showed the Potter crest. Thanks to his mother, he and his brother wore muggle suits instead of dress-robes. It was a lot better looking in his eyes than the flowing robes. For dancing he could take off the cloak while he would still fit in properly with wizarding society. He was waiting for Fleur to come up from the Beauxbatons carriage. The way up had been cleared of all snow that had fallen and warming charms had been set up by Professor Flitwick. Nobody needed to fear feeling cold outside for the time of the ball.

Finally, he saw the Beauxbatons contingent coming up, Fleur walking next to Madame Maxime. She looked beautiful in her silver dress that showed off her figure magnificently. He smiled at her when she arrived.

"You are looking absolutely beautiful Fleur," He complimented her kissing her hand making her blush a little.

"Zank you 'Arry," She replied smiling, "You are very 'andsome yourself."

"May I escort you to the dance?" He asked holding out his arm for her.

"Oui monsieur, you may," She replied, taking his arm and falling in step next to him.

The others went into the Great Hall while Harry and Fleur joined Aaron and Viktor with their dates. Harry and Viktor's match had gone on for over an hour with both trying to feint against the other, none giving a bit. In the end, Harry had snatched the snitch by a fingertip. It had been incredibly close. Both were intent on playing against each other in a proper match now. To Harry's surprise, Viktor's date was Katie Bell. Well, he probably was sick of all the fangirls and Katie was one of the few girls at Hogwarts completely outside of such behaviour. The only slightly fangirl part she might show was for Quidditch techniques, but not his part in them. She had too much experience with fawning fans, as she was a pretty player who had been part of a winning team for years herself. Professor McGonagall instructed them on the order in which they had to enter the Great Hall. They would walk around the Hall once before facing the table that was for the champions, their dates and the judges. Dinner would be served first, then, after everybody was finished, the dance would be opened by them.

They all nodded in understanding and then waited until they were called to march in. First were Harry and Fleur, followed by Viktor and Katie and in the rear Aaron and Sylveena. They all promenaded around the free space in the middle until they came to stop at the champions' table. Harry, Aaron and Viktor pulled out the chairs for their dates before sitting down themselves, Harry putting his cloak on the back of his chair.

The majority of the male students shot Harry envious glares, as he had the most desirable woman currently present as his date, while the female population did the same with Fleur. Many girls had hoped to be the one to become Harry's date, especially the sixth and seventh-years. It was similar for the girls from third to fifth year with Aaron. Many had wanted to get some spotlight for being the date of a champion. The glares Katie got from Viktor's fangirls were very similar. Though the champions and their dates ignored it in favour of talking to each other and eating the delicious food that was prepared by the house elves. Finally, Dumbledore called the audience to silence.

"Now that we have enjoyed the fantastic food, it's time for our champions to open the ball. So, I call them forward to the dance floor," Dumbledore said, and the three couples walked onto the dance floor.

"What do you think about giving them a show that they will never forget?" Harry whispered in Fleur's ear.

"Let's do it!" She agreed.

Harry twirled Fleur into position to start the first dance, a waltz. He knew that Fleur was an advanced dancer as was he. Sadly, she never found a partner that could resist her allure before, so she couldn't indulge her hobby as much as she would have liked. When the music started, he confidently led her through the waltz, performing the most complicated motions the dance allowed with a natural grace that all other pairs lacked. He only caught glimpses of his brother and was glad to see that Aaron was doing well. Then he gave Fleur his whole attention.

One dance became many and Harry and Fleur easily outperformed all the other dancers on the floor. No matter if slow or fast, they danced together in perfect harmony. Harry enjoyed it greatly and from the look on Fleur's face she did too. Finally, they took a break to get something to drink. Harry led Fleur back to their table and went to get drinks. As he had found out, she preferred fruity sparkling wine over butterbeer and punch, so he got some from the table where the drinks had been set up. When he got back to his table, he saw Fleur in a discussion in French with Katie, who seemed to wait for Viktor to return. She looked flushed, but happy.

Harry knew that Katie and her family often went on vacation in France, as her mother had relatives living there. They always went for two weeks during the summer break at the least. Therefore, Katie was fluent in French. She had a talent for languages in general. He had overheard her talking to Angelina and Alicia two years ago about wanting to work at an international company after graduation from Hogwarts, which would be much easier to get in if she knew several foreign languages. As far as he was aware, she knew French, Spanish, Italian and Greek so far.

After some time of resting, Harry took Fleur to meet with his friends. He had to hit some over the head when they spaced out thanks to Fleur, but overall it was a relaxed atmosphere. They danced some more, also exchanging partners some. Cedric proved to be the one most resistant to Fleur's allure and managed to only look slightly dazzled by her beauty, not turning into a drooling fool. Harry didn't envy Fleur for the reactions she got for just who she was.

* * *

Harry had taken Fleur to a secluded part of the castle. He had made sure to use the Marauder's Map to make sure that nobody was around. He had prepared this spot, as he was sure that the gardens were patrolled by one of the teachers and it wouldn't be easy to have some romantic alone time there. And you had to put in effort if you wanted to win a woman like Fleur. With a flick of his wand he started the music and lit the candles to let her see the place.

Fleur looked around and saw that Harry had converted a small room into a comfortable room with a couch, a bottle of good wine waiting on the table with two glasses.

"I wanted to have some alone time with you, Fleur," He told her softly, "We normally only get to see each other with others around."

"Yes, zat's a shame," She agreed and let him fill her glass with wine, "That's a really good wine."

"I did some discreet investigation in your likes in wine and decided that this sort would probably be to your liking," Harry admitted.

"Zank you, it eez one of my favourites." She said smiling and drank a bit, "Hm, a 1975, a very good year for zis one."

"Only the best for you, ma chére," He said, drinking himself.

They sat on the couch, telling each other stories of their childhoods and other things. Finally, when Harry knew that it was time to let Fleur return to the Beauxbatons carriage to not get into trouble with Madame Maxime, he gently embraced her and put his forehead on hers.

"I had a very enjoyable evening Fleur, thank you for agreeing to be my date," He said softly with a lot of emotion in his voice.

"Moi aussi," She replied, "I wish it wasn't over yet."

"Me too. I like being together with you. Would you like to be my girlfriend?" He asked hopefully.

"OUI!" She cried out happily.

Harry leaned in to kiss her tenderly. She reciprocated the kiss and he felt that this time he had found the right girl.


	5. Igniting the Potter Temper is a BAD Idea

**Thank you everybody for all those reviews. I hope that all those asking for fast updates have by now realised that I post one chapter a day :). This is the second to last chapter. I hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

 **Why Igniting the Potter Temper is a BAD Idea**

The time until the second task was a very happy time for Harry Potter. Fleur had taken to sitting with him at the Gryffindor table during meals, he got to spend a good amount of his free time with her, studying together for their NEWTs, as Fleur, like Harry, had every intention to take them at the end of the year. Madame Maxime had arranged for her to get an additional month of preparation time due to the Tournament. She would take some of the NEWT tests one month after they were normally taken. She was taking six NEWT classes, namely Charms, Potions, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Transfiguration and History of Magic. The French teaching was a lot better than Binns. As Harry shared five of her classes, they exchanged information on the subjects and helped each other with their homework. They didn't talk about the second task. They had agreed that they would compete fairly and just do their best.

Harry had already figured out that the screeching sound was a magical language, Mermish in particular. So, the task would be in the Black Lake. He had told Aaron how to solve the riddle and he would wait what his brother would come up with as a solution. If he hadn't managed to find a way to breathe underwater for an hour until two weeks before the task, he would help more, but for now he thought with the information available that he had it would be good for Aaron to use his head to find a way to solve the riddle on his own. And his friends would definitely help him find a way. He had also reminded Aaron to not just concentrate on the method, but also possible obstacles on his way. But their father took care of teaching Aaron many spells for that Purpose on the weekends.

His own battle plan was set. He would use gillyweed to breathe underwater with a bubblehead charm as the backup plan if the plant stopped working while he was still underwater. The time one had with it differed from person to person and the type of water. He only wondered what the organisers would place at the ground of the lake. It would have to be something that the champions would really miss. He only hoped that they weren't as stupid as he feared to take hostages. If they did, well, Harry would make sure that they regretted the day they came up with the stupid idea.

He had also found a great way to keep Aaron on his toes at all times. They didn't know after all if the one putting his name into the Goblet would try another method on top of the tasks, using the Tournament as a distraction, should his plans not work as he hoped they would. After all, Aaron had done much better than anybody could expect in the first task. Jasmine and Dahlia were delighted to ambush their second oldest brother at random times outside of class Hours in all Kinds of ways. They were especially proud when they managed to hit him and his group of friends with colour potion water bombs. And that with permission of the head boy, who had warned his head of house of the training method he had thought up. As everything could be remedied with a scourgify charm, she grudgingly allowed it to continue.

It helped with the twins not feeling left out, as their family needed to concentrate on Aaron's training right now, which meant their own training was pushed back a little bit. They still got training from Harry when he had time, but they understood that this was a life or death situation for Aaron. And neither of them wanted to see Aaron hurt because he didn't prepare well enough. Thus, with some input of their father, they took to light pranks that helped school Aaron in Constant Vigilance. It was unnecessary to say that Professor Moody fully approved their method and even gave a few hints how to improve their ideas.

Two weeks before the second task Harry asked Aaron if he had found a way to breathe an hour underwater and was happy to hear that Aaron had, thanks to Neville, found out about gillyweed too. He had already ordered the plant from an apothecary, so Harry was relieved that he wouldn't have to fear too much for his brother. He was more concerned for Fleur. Veela were beings connected to fire and air, water would be the hardest environment for her to be in. He only hoped that she would be okay.

* * *

Harry was ready to tear into the judges. They had indeed chosen hostages and Fleur was beside herself. Her little sister Gabrielle had been placed in the lake. She was just eleven and her powers wouldn't be able to protect her properly. Harry swore that, if Fleur wouldn't be able to save her, he would. He walked over to Viktor.

"Viktor, I want to ask you a favour," Harry said seriously.

"In a competitive task?" Viktor asked surprised.

"It's only one thing. Fleur's hostage is her little sister Gabrielle, she is only eleven and cold water, if she is exposed to it too long, can kill her, or at least seriously harm her magic. I want to ask you that if you come across the hostages close to the end of the hour we have, and Gabrielle is still there, and neither I nor Fleur are there, please get her out of there next to your own hostage," Harry asked.

"Stupids. Even I know you don't place Veela children in cold water. I vill do vat I can," Viktor promised.

"Thank you, Viktor," Harry said gratefully.

Harry walked over to Fleur and tried to calm her down.

"Viktor and I won't let anything bad happen to Gabrielle. If you don't get there, one of us will bring her back," Harry assured her.

"Zank you, 'Arry," She replied shaking in his embrace.

Finally, the judges gave the signal for the champions to start their task. Harry and Aaron put the gillyweed into their mouths, Fleur put a bubblehead charm on her head and Viktor simply jumped into the water, doing whatever he had planned.

Harry had been cautious and placed a tracking charm on Cedric's watch. He knew that Cedric always wore it and so he knew where to go. He signalled Aaron and Fleur to simply follow his lead. At the moment, he couldn't care less for the competition, not when a girl's life was at stake. He led the group down to the place where he was led by his tracking charm. They avoided the seaweed, as Harry knew that it was a dwelling ground for grindylows. They passed the giant squid that only looked at them with interest but didn't attack them. The reason was probably that Harry and his group had regularly played with it since their second year.

They made good time to the merpeople village. They found it after about twenty minutes. They swam over to the four that were tied to a statue in the middle of the village. Katie was Viktor's hostage, Hermione was Aaron's, somewhat surprising, but she was among the people he was closest to, but they had placed his date to the ball, Sylveena Esmeraude, as a higher probability, Cedric was Harry's, probably because they could hardly put his girlfriend into the lake when she was a champion, and his Little sisters would cause a lot of trouble with the Potters, and Gabrielle for Fleur. They all swam down to the ropes that held their hostages when the merpeople started to close in while raising their tridents, seemingly intent to harm Fleur. Harry wouldn't have any of it.

"Veela!" One merman furiously exclaimed, "You dare come down to our land."

Harry quickly erected a shield around the whole group and let his aura flow freely, shocking the merpeople. He pointed his wand at the one trying to attack Fleur. His message was clear as was the power everybody felt. Hurt her and die. This show of true power was enough to have the merpeople back away and Aaron quickly cut all the ropes that kept the hostages down. Thankfully Viktor was already approaching in a half man half shark form. Thus, Katie didn't have to stay here. The four champions covered each other's backs and swam back to the surface, Harry swearing to curse the judges.

They broke the surface together, Viktor reversing his transformation.

"Vat vas that?" He asked confused.

"Merpeople and Veela are enemies. Stupid organisers to not know zat!" Fleur raged, "To zink what Gabrielle could have gone through if her allure had already manifested."

"Be sure that I will point out that foolishness pointedly. I won't take this silently," Harry promised, after he had swallowed the antidote to the gillyweed. He also handed Aaron some of it, to allow him to come out of the water.

Gabrielle was questioning Fleur in rapid French and her lips were blue from the cold.

"She needs to get out of here quickly. I have an idea," Harry said and whistled loudly on his fingers.

The giant squid appeared, and Harry got him to carry the whole group to the land while he hit Gabrielle with the strongest warming charms that he knew. Viktor, Cedric and Fleur followed quickly and also placed the charms on Aaron, Katie, Hermione and then themselves. Soon they reached the stands where the ones watching the task were assembled, applauding, even if some wondered why the champions had all come back together on the back of the giant squid.

Harry was the first one to jump from the squid, the others followed soon, some helped by levitation charms.

"Madam Pomfrey, come over here!" Harry shouted, the healer already on her way.

"What's the matter, Mr Potter?" She asked business like.

"Check Gabrielle. Her magic doesn't take well to cold water. She is a Veela child for Merlin's sake!" Harry called out enraged.

The he turned towards the judges, eyes blazing, unleashing his powerful aura.

"Which of you completely incompetent bastards had the glorious idea to use Gabrielle as Fleur's hostage?" He shouted with amplified voice, "Did you even care that her magic could be greatly damaged by being in the cold water for hours?"

The students that were assembled felt for the first time the true strength of Harry Potter. All of them, especially the dark-raised children, swore to not get on his bad side. They realized that it would be extremely painful to do so. Wind seemed to swirl around Harry with tremendous power and it looked as if he still had full control over it.

The five judges gulped involuntarily at the suffocating feeling Harry projected on them. And the worst part was that they had only themselves to blame for this. They hadn't even thought about the consequences of putting a Veela child underwater in an ice-cold lake for hours. The only thing they avoided was taking either Jasmine or Dahlia Potter as hostages for their older brothers, as they feared the revenge of their mother too much. On top of that the students were also glaring at them and the four champions showed impressive unity in their fury. Fleur seemed to only not transform into the Veela bird form because her magic had been weakened too underwater.

"Harry, please calm down," Dumbledore brought out only to be blown from the judges' stand into the cold lake.

Fred and George were commenting on how far he had flown and how it had to hurt to hit the water surface with that much force. Next was Madame Maxime, which many were in awe about, due to her size and weight, Karkaroff followed then Bagman and Wintergold. Many students were both impressed with that much power, and terrified to have it directed at them, but then again, Harry had iron control over it. Many drew parallels between the reputation of Lily Potter and what her oldest son was showing here in front of them. Again, the children from dark families swore to not make him their enemy. It would prove to be a point of frustration for certain people in the future, as rallying supporters for the dark cause proved to be very difficult, as most were smart enough to realise that it was suicide to go against the side on which Harry Potter was. Not to mention Lily. She was famous for killing Bellatrix Lestrange after all and had only added to that fame by reading Albus Dumbledore himself the riot act. Repeatedly at that.

The five now drenched judges watched horrified as the seventeen-year-old young man unleashed his power into a small storm.

"Somebody calm him down!" Dumbledore shouted back to the other teachers in attendance, "He will hurt the students if he goes on."

But the students only felt a soft breeze passing them instead the storm. Only those trying to help the judges or attacking Harry got to feel the real power of the storm. Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall and Hagrid joined the five in the lake, the other teachers understood quickly that it was a mistake to go against Harry. It was smarter to wait. And for punishment this was actually tame. The merpeople kept their distance from the unleashed elemental attack. No way would they suffer from the foolishness of humans, because they called the rage of the powerful one. Harry's storm went on for ten minutes before he let it die down. He was in full control all the time. When Dumbledore and the other judges managed to get out of the lake, they looked worse for wear while the champions and their hostages were clad in warm clothes.

"Mr Potter, what is the meaning of this?" Dumbledore asked angrily.

"That, headmaster," Harry said menacingly, "is what happens if you endanger people that I care for. That is what you can expect to happen if anybody threatens the life of people I care for. I won't take things like the stupidity or perhaps even malicious intent like the one you showed towards Gabrielle's well-being lying down anymore. You also still haven't found out who put Aaron's name into the Goblet. It sure doesn't inflict confidence in you. Everybody who has studied other magical races at least a little, knows that Veela aren't meant to be in the water for long.

"Sure, they can swim for pleasure, but you won't find any Veela who likes to swim for longer periods and not at all in water colder than 20 centigrade. It attacks her magic. With Veela children the exposure to such an environment like a lake with a temperature close to zero centigrade can be lethal! Every single one of the champions, even Aaron, knew that. So, I wonder why the heads of the most important magical schools in Europe didn't. Or the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I can accept that the task was planned long before the champions were chosen, so that Fleur couldn't be given any advantages, but hell, you should never have used Gabrielle as her hostage, knowing that it endangered her life!"

The students that hadn't known that bit of information gasped how serious the situation had been and why Harry was rightfully furious. Everybody had seen how deeply he felt for Fleur and nearly all the students knew that he hated it with a passion if others were hurt for no reason. Some noticed James and Lily Potter close to the group of champions and hostages, silently backing their son's outrage with the organisation of the Tournament up.

"If you needed to go through with this stupid task, you should have taken her father as the hostage, he would only have been a bit cold, but not in mortal peril, but let me guess, you didn't even ask if you could use Gabrielle as the hostage. Otherwise you would have known about the danger to Gabrielle. I wonder what the Delacours will say about that," Harry asked, knowing that from the pale looks on Bagman's face that they had indeed not asked any of the guardians of the underage hostages for permission.

When the judges finally got around to marking the task, the champions couldn't care less.

"We refuse all together to take any points for this stupid task!" Aaron said and the other three simply nodded, "It is simply wrong to mark something that put a girl completely uninvolved with the task in mortal danger."

The champions in a group with their hostages, Fleur insisted to call her family healer for Gabrielle immediately, walked away, angering the judges that had hoped to look good with the task, but all the people around were talking about were their failures and the incredible display of power that Harry Potter had given.

* * *

Rita Skeeter was deliriously happy. She had a huge scandal at her hands, and this time, she didn't need to embellish anything. The truth was so deliciously tragic already that she could write the events of the second task without having to resort to half-truths and implications. While normally, she would have tried to spin a tragic story around the older Potter brother, she wasn't suicidal. After seeing that kind of power unleashed, she didn't want it directed towards her. No, thank you. Still, she wrote in terrible detail what kind of fate could have befallen young Gabrielle Delacour.

While many people in England disliked halfbreeds, a child being put in mortal danger because the adults had, again, failed to do their homework worked perfectly to have the papers sold rapidly. She managed to include the love story between Harry Potter and Fleur Delacour, which had to have driven the Hogwarts Champion to react the way he did. She wrote some backstory on the position of the Delacours in France in her article, and how it could be expected that there would be consequences for the actions taken by the parents of both the champions and the hostages (if they weren't the same that was).

She reminded the readers of the paper of the deadly past of the Tournament, and how only assurances that it would be much safer this time around had allowed it to be resurrected. The question was how putting a young girl who hadn't signed any contract for the Tournament followed that promise. Not to mention that the one putting Aaron Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire still hadn't been caught. The one messing with the charms on the object had finally been identified by the DMLE, but it turned out that he had been imperiused to do it. Which had the aurors on high alert. That kind of dark magic hadn't been seen since the war against You-Know-Who, and nobody wanted to return to those dark times.

* * *

James and Lily Potter had assembled their friends and allies. Harry's outburst during the second task and his detailed description of the failures of the organisers made them act as soon as possible. They were all angry how they had ignored the parents of the children that had been the hostages. The Delacours were preparing a law suit against the British Ministry, Hogwarts and Beauxbatons for endangering the life of Gabrielle. The Bells too were prepared to fight over the point that their daughter had been placed in the lake without their permission. For Hermione, the Potters would do it, as they were her designated magical guardians.

When Aaron had become friends with Hermione in his first year, Lily had made sure that Hermione's rights would be defended in the wizarding world. Sadly, for muggleborns, if nobody did it, they were basically without rights. They suspected it might be a reason why Hermione was chosen, instead of Sylveena, who was a halfblood with a politically influential pureblood father. Her mother also was a halfblood, from a family that had a well-to-do business in the magical world. Hence why James Potter was Hermione's magical guardian with the consent of her parents. Normally the head of the muggleborn's house would take the position, but experience showed that they didn't take that responsibility very serious.

Following the Potters' example, other halfblood or pureblood parents had taken over the magical guardianship for the friends of their children. So, for example had the Macmillans fought for Justin Finch-Fletchley's rights after he had been involved in the petrifications of the basilisk that had been loose in the castle in Aaron's second year. Thankfully a quick solution had been found after the first few petrifications. Aaron had given the suspicious diary that he had found to Harry, who had identified it as a dark object and had handed it over to Sirius. Being a Black, Sirius had determined what it was and had destroyed it with fiendfire. It had led to Ginny Weasley telling them how the diary had possessed her. Thanks to that, they had found out where the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets was located.

Ginny had told them that Tom Riddle, who had possessed her, had spoken with hissing sounds to open the entrance, ironically in a girl's bathroom. They had concluded that it had been parseltongue that opened the entrance. Aaron, who had a certain gift with magical creatures, had convinced a snake to open the entrance for them as they lacked a parselmouth. The aurors had gone down armed with a battalion of roosters and had dealt with the basilisk quickly. It had slept in the main chamber thankfully and it had been easy to kill it. The corpse had been harvested for potion ingredients with half of the winnings being given to the victims of the petrification and the other half was used to fund the needs of Hogwarts, for example thirty proper brooms were bought for the flying classes.

All of the assembled were furious how the organisers and the heads of the schools had disregarded the safety of the children and ignored the parents or guardians in regard of questioning for permission. It would come to bite them, as these particular parents were politically powerful.

* * *

Harry and Fleur were sitting on the couch in the small room that Harry had transfigured for the Yule Ball. Now he had set up wards around it to give them some private time away from curious students and annoying teachers. Many had tried to give Harry a hard time over his reaction towards the judges, but Harry had simply ignored them or glared at them so hard that they were afraid of him. After all, normally Harry was very pleasant and polite. The ones to fully back him up were Madam Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick. Madam Pomfrey, as her diagnostic spells had shown her just how dangerous the task had been for Gabrielle, and Professor Flitwick because of his goblin heritage. That the heritage of a part Veela had been ignored in favour of a show enraged him. After all, it was known that Fleur was part Veela and so they had to know it about Gabrielle too.

Professor McGonagall, always a loyal Dumbledore supporter, had tried to give him a tongue lashing, but one look and the icily asked question if she could simply accept that an innocent girl was put in mortal danger for entertainment shut her up quickly. As Harry was used to letting Snape's insults pass by him, he hadn't had much trouble on that front. Some other teachers were too used to believing that Dumbledore was always right and so were displeased with how he had handled the situation but knew better than to anger Harry.

Right now, Harry was enjoying Fleur's reward for showing the judges exactly what they had done wrong. He was very happy, as it involved a heated making out session with his gorgeous girlfriend. They had both agreed to wait with going beyond kissing and touching with their clothes on, but Fleur knew exactly how to show her boyfriend a good time within those limits.

* * *

James Potter was smiling, reading his oldest son's last letter home. He really hoped that this time Harry had found the right girl for him. His past girlfriends had been immensely disappointing. His first one had been Tanya Hilbers from his year in Hufflepuff. They had started dating in Harry's fourth year. But she had been more interested in getting connected to the powerful Potter family, especially as it had been Aaron's first year at Hogwarts, and nearly all students were going crazy over him. That relationship had ended after two months. Harry's second girlfriend had been Bianca Stevens, a muggleborn girl from Ravenclaw. She had been infatuated with Harry's Quidditch abilities and hadn't been able to see the whole person. After one visit to Hogsmeade where things to talk about ran out after half an hour that relationship had ended.

In Harry's fifth year he had briefly dated Alicia Spinnet from the Quidditch team, but after two weeks both had decided that they were better off as friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. That had been Harry's best relationship so far. Last had been Rebecca Selwyn from Ravenclaw, who had tried to profit from Harry's family name and didn't really have any feelings for him. Her father had told her to try and make Harry fall for her to have the Potters' and Blacks' support for his political agenda. Harry had been crushed when Angelina told him what she had overheard in the girl's bathroom. Since then Harry had been really careful with girls and Fleur Delacour was the first one he got really close to after that. It probably helped that Fleur as a Veela knew how difficult finding a partner, who saw you for who you were, was.

On top of things, while Fleur came from a politically active family, the Delacours lived in France, which meant that even if Harry should one day marry Fleur, it wouldn't do that much for their political standing. They were already at the top in France. From what James had seen of Apolline and Jean Delacour, they were very down to earth people, even if they portrayed the influential people they were all the time. Lily and Apolline had already become friends over discussing how to best fry the organizers of the second task. Jean and James had fled with Timothy Bell when their wives started to discuss torturing specific male anatomy of Dumbledore, Wintergold, Bagman, Fudge and Karkaroff. There were some things no male wanted to hear about, even if he wasn't the target of a woman's ire.

Harry had written that he wanted to invite Fleur to Potter Manor during the summer and asked for permission, as Fleur would need to be added to the wards to make it possible. James saw no problem with that, as long as Fleur swore an oath that she didn't want to hurt any members of the Potter family. After the attack from Voldemort that had been made possible by Peter betraying them, James had added additional layers of security to his family home. They would meet with the Delacours over dinner on Easter Monday to give the Potters and the Delacours more opportunity to get to know each other better. If James had overheard Lily talking to Alice right, Jasmine and Dahlia had also struck up a friendship with the one-year younger Gabrielle. They were the same age after all, and Gabrielle was the only Beauxbatons student staying at Hogwarts her age, which let her be a bit lonely. And the three girls quickly bonded over watching the developing relationship of their older siblings.

From a pure testosterone driven male point of view James was incredibly proud that Harry had managed to get a Veela as his girlfriend, as a father he was just happy that Harry and Fleur seemed to click like he and Lily did after he had managed to grow up enough for her to look past his former arrogance. Looking back, he had really behaved like an arse, especially towards Snape, but it wasn't as if there hadn't been lots of reasons to hate the boy back then. Snape had been hanging around the darker oriented students, knew lots of dark magic and was overall a bully to others whenever Lily didn't look closely.

During first year, they had only exchanged insults, from second year on the marauders had retaliated for bullying with pranks. They had gone too far from fourth year on, he knew that now, but they had been arrogant and too sure of their abilities back then. That nobody had reined them in didn't help at all. He was just glad that his children, while fun-loving, knew how far something was considered a prank and when it went into bullying. And if any of the younger ones would overdo things, Harry would step in.

He couldn't be more grateful than he was that he had vehemently ignored Dumbledore's plans to concentrate on Aaron because of that stupid prophecy. Harry would never have turned into the incredible young man he was if he hadn't. His son was powerful, more so than him. He was about to surpass his mother soon too. In two years, none of them would hold a candle to Harry's power and abilities. And he feared how Harry might have resented them, had they favoured Aaron, or even neglected Harry completely. It had been a trap they had avoided by distancing themselves from Albus Dumbledore. He would never have thought how much the old headmaster had manipulated things, but in hindsight there was much that could be blamed on him.

Well, now he would concentrate on getting his younger son through the Tournament safely and then hopefully celebrate Harry's victory. Aaron didn't want to win, he only wanted to survive. He thought his brother was the one who deserved the glory, as he was the true Hogwarts champion and had made sure that he got through the tasks safely.


	6. A Dark Shadow Returns

**This is the last chapter. Thank you for leaving so many reviews and favouring the story. Now happy reading.**

* * *

 **A Dark Shadow Returns**

It was finally time for the last task to begin. Harry had finished his NEWTs a week ago and was sure that he had managed to pass everything to his satisfaction. Harry and Aaron had spent the day with their parents, their sisters during the lunch break and after classes let out, the Blacks and Remus Lupin. Sirius had come to make sure that security measures were airtight. He wouldn't risk anything with the problems that had come up in the first two tasks. The public, informed by Rita Skeeter in very detailed articles, was already against the Ministry performance so far. Aaron becoming champion against his will, Harry showing his displeasure over Gabrielle's endangerment in a powerful display of magic, a successful lawsuit against Hogwarts and the Ministry led by the Potters and the Delacours, resulting in major fines for those involved, and loss of the positions of Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Chief Mugwump of the ICW for Dumbledore were all very prominent in people's minds.

Fudge had tried to get the Daily Prophet to report the Ministry in a good light, but the Potters and their allies had prevented that easily. With the Potters themselves owning 19 % of the shares, the Blacks 25 % and the Longbottoms holding 11 %, they controlled 55 % of the Daily Prophet and had therefore the controlling majority. It didn't matter that the Ministry held 30 % and was the single largest shareholder, combined they could force a certain policy in reporting on the Prophet, which meant that articles had to be properly researched and outright lies, slander and exaggerated reporting were not permitted.

From the current score, which only included the first task, as the four champions had refused to accept any points given for the second task due to the organizers endangering Gabrielle, Harry would go into the maze that was the third task first, followed by Aaron, then Fleur and last Viktor. They were all close together in points, except Harry who had nine points lead on Aaron. Harry and Aaron were ready for whatever the maze would hold for them. Aaron was advised to simply do his best and keep a cool head. Harry was going to attempt winning the Tournament though. He was ready for this and wanted to make an impression. They all hoped that whoever had put Aaron's name into the Goblet of Fire was not going to get past Sirius' security precautions. He had personally checked each of the aurors who would be patrolling the maze in teams of two with a teacher. This way the champions in the maze should be as safe as possible. On top of that, he had set up anti-apparition, anti-portkey and anti-unforgivable wards.

The things that the Blacks had come up with over centuries were incredible. Not always legal and certainly sickening in some cases but concerning protective wards only some of the Potter ancestors had surpassed their ingenuity. He had kept what he did silent though. Nobody but James knew what Sirius had set up. It increased the level of security a lot.

Bagman was informing the audience of the current ranking of the champions and how much time between them entering the maze would pass. The students in the audience cheered for their respective champions loudly. Harry held Fleur in his arms and assured her that he would be safe in the maze and asked her to look out herself. She promised him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Then Harry had to get ready to enter the maze. Once the canon was fired by Filch, which was the signal, he started running into the maze.

The obstacles mostly were what Harry had expected. The worst ones were part of Hagrid's ever so dangerous zoo. Thankfully Harry had taken Care of Magical Creatures long enough to know how to deal with all of them. While he hadn't taken NEWTs in Care, he had been a guest at Hagrid's house often enough, and for the last two years, thanks to Hagrid being made COMC Professor, and the man therefore often showing him what would have been covered during the last two years, he knew what to expect and had prepared accordingly. He faced a boggart, a hippogriff, a blast-ended skrewt, Aaron and his friends had complained about them lots of times, therefore he knew what to avoid with them and how to work around one, a sphinx, an ashwinder, a roaring fire including a salamander and for good measure an acromantula at the end, together with numerous charms, pit traps and other nasty ideas other teachers must have come up with.

When Harry finally had reached the centre of the maze, he was dirty, had some cuts on his clothes and wanted to end this task. The Triwizard Cup was gleaming brightly in the dark. He walked over cautiously and grabbed the handle. He felt as if a pull was trying to hook with him, but that another force prevented it. Harry realized that somebody had turned the Cup into a portkey and that wards were preventing it from working. He let it fall to the ground and quickly disabled the portkey charm. He didn't want to find out where the portkey would have taken him. He then grabbed it again and carried it through the maze back to the entrance. He really wanted to know what the meaning of this was.

* * *

At a certain graveyard, Voldemort was getting impatient. By now, Aaron Potter should have reached the Cup and be transported here through the portkey that the Cup had become. He had managed to imperius the imbecile Fudge to turn the cup. After all, nobody would investigate the Minister of Magic if he had been at fault for the abduction of the Boy-Who-Lived. He would also place Krum under the imperius so that the Beauxbatons champion and Harry Potter would be out of the Tournament to not interfere with his plan. Nothing would go wrong. He would get the blood of Aaron Potter for the ritual and come back to full power.

After four hours of waiting Voldemort knew that something hadn't worked out as it should. By now, somebody should have found the Cup. But there was no victim to use in the ritual. Wormtail was feeling his rage right now. Well, he would have to fall back to plan B. While he wanted to break the protection Aaron Potter had from his grandmother's sacrifice, he wanted to be revived more urgently. And the window of time that the ritual could work was closing. So, he ordered Wormtail to kidnap one of the supporters of the old fool Dumbledore. Wormtail decided that Arthur Weasley would do perfectly, as he knew that the Burrow where the Weasley parents would undoubtedly be right now, didn't have wards. There was little to gain by robbing the place and the Weasleys didn't have the money to pay for wards to protect the family. Even if their oldest son was a cursebreaker and could create them. Without a ward stone to anchor them, all wards he could place would fall over time. So Wormtail took off towards Ottery St. Catchpole.

After an hour, he returned with a bound and gagged man.

"So, you at least managed to do this right, Wormtail. Start the ritual, I am getting impatient." Voldemort ordered.

Wormtail lit the fire under the cauldron and intoned the words for the ritual. He called up bone of the father from Tom Riddle's grave, flesh of the servant by cutting off his hand and cut into Arthur's arm to get blood of the enemy. The light erupting from the cauldron was blinding and once the process was over Voldemort had regained a body.

"At last I have a new body." Voldemort said, inspecting his body.

Wormtail was whimpering on the ground, holding his bleeding stump of an arm.

* * *

At Hogwarts Harry was celebrated as the new Triwizard Champion in the Great Hall. Once he had come out of the maze with the Cup, the cheering and applause had started, and it hadn't stopped for solid ten minutes. He had been incredibly happy. The other three champions had politely applauded as well, and Fleur had shown her pride in her boyfriend with a long kiss. The award ceremony was pompous, but what could be expected from a Ministry organized event? After that Harry had told his parents and uncles that the cup had been made into a portkey and Sirius was grinning, satisfied that his wards had protected his godson. The plan must have been to get Aaron to the Cup first and by using a portkey get him away from his normal protection. Well, it had been thwarted and whoever had hoped to catch Aaron must be really frustrated.

Sirius decided to keep monitoring all people that had come in contact with the Cup to find the one who had done the change. For now, everybody was enjoying a great feast in honour of Harry. This was a once in a lifetime event and Harry deserved to have all their attention for his achievement.

The fun only ended when Snape and Karkaroff suddenly grabbed their left arms as if in pain. James noticed and discretely threw a listening charm in their direction. He only heard Karkaroff whimper 'He is back.' It was enough to tell him all he needed to know. Somehow, he didn't know how, Voldemort had got back a body. He cursed under his breath. Well, his home and the homes of his friends were safe. Serious upgrading of the wards after the fall of Voldemort thirteen years ago had ensured that. But they would need to prepare and get the Ministry ready to interfere with Voldemort's plans. Probably Dumbledore would try to use the situation for his own gain to once more be the supposed leader of the light. He needed to make sure that Aaron and Harry didn't get caught up in one of the old man's stupid schemes. Having aged thirteen years since the end of the last war had helped James see things without the naivety of his youth.

Dumbledore's way of doing things didn't work. It left too many Death Eaters free to re-join Voldemort when he came back and that much they had all known after the Dark Mark on Snape's arm never fully vanished. Thanks to Sirius, many supposed imperius victims were found out to be loyal supporters of Voldemort, but there were still too many that got away, like Malfoy and some other, not clearly found-out Death Eaters and unmarked sympathisers. Many that bought their way to freedom, mainly by letting evidence that could have forced an interrogation under veritaserum vanish as soon as Voldemort fell, and were very wealthy. The one worry was Fudge. The man was incapable of doing the necessary things to ensure the country's safety. He would have to gather those that were for not keeping to stunners but taking the Death Eaters down for good. Not dark magic, but who said that one needed it to make sure your defeated opponent stayed out of a fight? Breaking limbs, summoning wands and other things like that worked wonders. He would inform his children tomorrow to put them on their guard. Tonight, it would be unfair towards Harry to spoil the evening.

* * *

Dumbledore was pacing in his office. Severus had reported the summoning from Voldemort. That meant the time of waiting for his return was up. The massive problem he faced was that he had no weapon against Voldemort. Aaron Potter was raised by his parents to not blindly follow Dumbledore and think about his actions carefully. His plan had been to have a boy formed to believe in the infallibility of Albus Dumbledore's actions and decisions. That was why he had suggested to have James and Lily concentrate on Aaron and either neglect Harry or send him away to Lily's sister.

Without having an older sibling to share his parents with, Aaron wouldn't have had anybody to rely on at Hogwarts, which had spectacularly backfired. Harry Potter was everything any child could hope for in an older brother. He had been top of his year since his second year, been on the Quidditch team since his first year and was named Quidditch Captain over the older Oliver Wood in his fourth year, thanks to seniority on the team. Harry had played three years on the team compared to Oliver's two years. On top of that, Harry was a natural leader and therefore Minerva had decided to give the badge to Harry and not Oliver.

Next, he had been named prefect in his fifth year and now was head boy. A spectacular career at Hogwarts, only crowned by winning the Triwizard Tournament. Harry was popular all over the school and even some of the smarter Slytherins grudgingly respected him and his power. But this year Harry had openly shown his defiance against Dumbledore and anyone intent on harming his brother or anybody endangering others he was close to. It had gone so far to result in a trial against those that had endangered Gabrielle Delacour at the bottom of the lake. The Ministry had to pay a high fine and all costs for the girl's medical care. Dumbledore himself had lost his two powerful political positions and a lot of political standing. Harry Potter was already rumoured to be on his way to become more powerful than him. That simply couldn't happen. Even Aaron's fame had drifted into the background with his brother's performance in the Tournament. Now Harry had won the Tournament and would continue to gain a reputation.

And he didn't plan to become an auror, which would have been easy to use as an icon for the light, no, the boy had decided to first play Quidditch while studying for becoming a healer. No matter who had praised the job as an auror, Harry wanted to become a healer. He didn't like hurting others and only fought if he couldn't avoid it. And to be honest, none of his displays this year had hurt anybody. Harry had only shown his immense raw power and damaged the pride of several adults and had made clear that he wasn't somebody you wanted to have against you.

At least, as far as he had overheard, Aaron wanted to become an auror, but that was years away and he couldn't be the icon the light needed right now. He would always be in Harry's shadow as long as he was still at school and the Potters would prevent anybody from exploiting their son. He had first hoped that he could use the fact that Harry would graduate this year to get more influence over Aaron, but there were still the Weasley twins here next year. They were part of Harry's group and would make sure to keep an eye on the younger kids.

He had no illusions that Fudge would listen to him when he told him that Voldemort was back. He had no irrefutable proof of that fact and he knew that short of having Fudge see Voldemort in person he would deny everything. Especially as the Ministry was already looking bad for the scandals that had come up over the last year. No, the better way would be letting Sirius prepare the aurors behind Fudge's back. But that included trusting Sirius, who was not part of the people who followed him blindly, which he didn't like at all.

* * *

Harry listened to the information his father and Uncle Sirius told them intently. Voldemort was back. They didn't really know how he had managed that, but they couldn't ignore it. They all knew their family would be a target. They were notoriously against all Dark Lords and Voldemort in particular. The one thing that annoyed him most was that now his plans would have to be changed. It would probably be too dangerous to professionally play Quidditch. At least in England. He would have to accept the offer of another European team. Well, there was a French team that wanted to contract him as the seeker. It would be nice to be closer to Fleur.

He would also need to continue and increase his defensive training. That wouldn't be too difficult. Apart from training, he could plan his time like he wanted to. He would have to enter discussions about his contract to get the details ironed out, but normally he wouldn't have any problems. After all, his success in the Tournament and his known skill in the air would make him a magnet for spectators of the team he signed up for. He could only hope that Voldemort wouldn't attack in another country. Probably not for some time, but once he had regained strength after being a wraith for over a decade that could change. Well, he would use the time he had. He wouldn't risk people if Voldemort decided to attack his matches.

One relief was that Voldemort wouldn't have an easy time recruiting new Death Eaters, as he didn't have many of the old ones to fall back upon. They were mostly at Azkaban. A few had managed to get away, but their numbers were much lower than they could have been, had his uncle not done everything in his powers to cut down everybody that was found with a dark mark, or suspected to be a Voldemort supporter. Azkaban was a point on the list that needed to be fortified quickly, as the dementors had sided with Voldemort in the past, and they could expect them to do it again, which made leaving Voldemort's Death Eaters under their watch highly stupid. The problem was that Fudge wouldn't see it like that.

He watched his brother and sisters. They were much more worried. Aaron would be one of the top targets. His survival and role in Voldemort's body loss were known everywhere. His father just told them that their training would be greatly upped over the summer to help them get away when they got into a dangerous situation. They would also all get an emergency portkey, which they were to use if they needed it. He got one too, but he could defend himself better, so he wouldn't need it as much.

His mother was already mentally making plans how to fight against the Death Eaters and how long it would probably take for them to get organised again. He knew the look on her face. She always wore it when she was planning something big. There were many things to consider; especially making sure that those that would be targeted could be protected. In the last war, too many had died because their homes had been unprotected. Harry knew that his parents had found several ways to secure homes and his father was making a lot of money with that. Warding required power and not many wizards had the raw power to create good wards that could be fed to higher levels over time by average wizards and witches living under them.

The basic instruction for the next months was nobody went anywhere without informing their parents or another adult, Harry counted as an adult now, and nowhere outside of protected estates without adult supervision. As the grounds of Potter Manor were big and included a full Quidditch pitch that wasn't too much of a sacrifice. Black Manor was similar as was Longbottom Manor, though without the Quidditch pitch.

* * *

The two Delacour daughters were shocked to hear that the dark lord that had terrorized Britain a decade ago had managed to return. Their parents told them that it was relatively sure that he wouldn't come to France, but they should be careful, especially Fleur, as she was Harry Potter's girlfriend. Fleur knew that Harry wouldn't stop living and decided to floo over to Potter Manor to talk to him about the immediate plans. Their parents only reminded them to be careful when they went out until things got worse and the problems reached France.

* * *

Harry was very happy to see Fleur stepping out of the floo. She had called to ask if he had time to talk about the new situation. He greeted her with a hug and a fiery kiss. She happily returned it. It took a few minutes before they separated. Harry led Fleur to his room after letting her greet his parents who were in the library looking up warding schemes they wanted to promote in the next months.

Fleur was impressed with the big and bright room. There were two posters on the wall, one of Harry's favourite Quidditch team, the Appleby Arrows, and one was a photo enlarged to poster size of his closest friends. His firebolt was in a secured vitrine and the main colour scheme was red accents on white walls. She had thought he might have gone with the colours of his house at Hogwarts, but except the accents on the curtains and the bed sheets there wasn't much. He had a big bookshelf with medical books that filled a whole wall of his room.

"I see you 'ave already begun to collect books for your future career, 'Arry," she commented.

"Well, I knew for some time that I wanted to become a healer, Fleur," shrugged Harry, "I saw no reason to not get a head start."

"Oui, zat's reasonable. So, 'ow are you doing?" she asked.

"Quite well. While the situation is dangerous, it could have been much worse. And I am good at defending myself. The one thing to irk me is that my choice in Quidditch teams is more limited now than I had expected. Any team in England would be too easy a target for Death Eater attacks, once Voldemort manages to get enough mobilised and recruited. While Uncle Sirius and Amelia Bones have the DMLE organised quite well, the stupid Budget cuts for the DMLE don't make things easy. The aurors are good and well-trained, with a bit of training they will be ready for fights against Death Eaters, but their numbers are low," explained Harry.

"Why is zat? I would zink zat ze aurors should be a 'igh priority for any Ministry to keep strong," asked Fleur.

"Fudge is a corrupt bastard and was bought by those that profit from a toothless DMLE. And Dumbledore didn't do enough to curb his stupidity, even if it should have been his duty as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. The CW normally is tasked with controlling the Minister, to prevent that one abuses his position badly. After the last war, many people wanted to pretend that everything was okay again. They wanted the illusion of safety. After all, the previous decade had been dominated by terror. While Crouch was easily convinced by Uncle Sirius and the Longbottoms to not allow any suspected Death Eater to get away without a trial under veritaserum, Bagnold wanted to make it appear that the Ministry had everything under control in a way that allowed to cut back the war-time staff of the DMLE.

"That was the beginning. Not to mention that she needed money for rebuilding, as people voiced their dismay about it taking too long for things to be repaired. Fudge only continued that after he was elected. I know that Uncle Sirius and Madam Bones are working tirelessly all the time to prevent more cuts to their budget. Thankfully, there are enough smart people that understand that further reduction of the DMLE budget would be a huge mistake. The dark faction at the Wizengamot has failed three times in the past two years to get a shift of money away from the DMLE passed. Still, the hiring of new aurors has dropped to dangerous levels, if one wants to keep up certain training standards, not to mention ensure that older aurors aren't forced to work in the field all the time."

"I see. Did you already decide on a team to sign up for?" asked Fleur.

"Not yet. With England out of the question for now, as I won't endanger the spectators like that, the foreign teams are at the top of the list. I have offers for Rouge Partisans Paris and St. Isabelle Lyon in France for example," he told her.

"Would you consider playing in France?" she wanted to know.

"Certainly. I speak French fluently after all, and it would allow me to see you more often," he smiled at her.

"Very true, 'Arry," she approved and showed it with a kiss, "You might also be in luck to study wiz a 'ealer at ze leading l'hôpital in Paris, should you choose zem. L'hôpital de la Saint Caterine is famous in France."

"It is certainly something I have been thinking about," admitted Harry.

They continued talking for a while, before they switched to kissing and caressing each other again.

* * *

Fred and George Weasley looked at their former team captain. Contrary to other members of their family, they had invitations to Potter Manor, and they had decided that it would be important to see what Harry wanted to tell them. Harry had taken them to one of the salons, where he could activate privacy charms.

"Fred, George, I have an important mission for you for next year. As you know, I won't be at the school anymore. In fact, I won't be in England except for vacations," revealed Harry.

"Where will you be, oh our fearless leader?" asked Fred.

"I have signed up with Rouge Partisans Paris, after I worked out an agreement with L'hopital de la Saint Caterine for my healer training. It's too dangerous for me to play Quidditch for an English team right now, outside of the National team. Too much temptation for Voldemort to attack there," revealed Harry.

"True that," nodded George gravely.

The Weasleys were quite subdued, due to the attack on their father. He had barely survived the injuries given to him. They didn't know what had happened, but he had been badly injured when he managed to apparate to St. Mungo's. Somebody had also obliviated his memories of the past week from him. The healers suspected that some magical creature was involved, as several of the cuts he had seemed to have been caused by talons of some kind. Sirius Black suspected that somebody had tried to dispose of their father in a way that would disguise their actions. Making it look as if he had run afoul some dangerous creature, if it had killed him, would have worked. It was luck that he had escaped at all. And only due to that, they knew that he had been obliviated. He was still at St. Mungo's, recovering.

"Our parents have agreed to help Dumbledore in fighting Voldemort. We don't believe that this is a good idea. Dumbledore is an idiot and doesn't have good strategies for a war," stated Fred, "But any of our arguments were slapped down by Mum, who is a diehard Dumbledore follower."

"She also refuses to tell any of us anything that they are informed about. We are too young, according to her," grumbled George, "We are of age, but she doesn't care."

"Well, I know your abilities, and I want you to use them for things beyond playing pranks," stated Harry.

"What do you have in mind, Harry?" they asked together, looking intrigued.

"Thanks to my parents and uncles telling me how the last war was like, I have a good understanding of tactical weaknesses that Voldemort and his Death Eaters liked to exploit last time. Mainly, terrorizing the civilians, as they rarely manage to even put up basic defences. Shield charms are already a problem for those not trained properly in DADA, which due to the ever-funny Professor roulette comes down to a wide-spread problem. No year has ever had proper teachers for all seven years of their education there since the sixties, I think. You know yourself how badly our selection was. If not for my family teaching me at home, I wouldn't have managed to excel in that class."

"True that, the fact that you assisted us with learning those spells was a major reason why we ever passed the DADA OWL," nodded Fred.

"So, what do you need us to do next year? We had been thinking about dropping out earlier, to get our shop started. We don't really need NEWTs for a joke shop," started George.

"But we realise that Mum would murder us should we try it," sighed Fred.

"Not to mention that we still haven't managed to get the starting capital we calculated we would need together."

"We made good progress last year with sales of our first products, in large parts thanks to the larger customer base with all the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students"

"But we still need about five hundred galleons more, to really make the shop take off," they explained with their usual twin speech ping-pong.

"What I want you two to do is using the time at Hogwarts to create all kinds of items that the normal witch or wizard can use to protect him- or herself with. If they can't use the spells themselves, it would help a lot to have an item they can carry on their person taking over the part for them. Like an automated shield charm, something to place a disillusionment charm on them and so on. I'm sure, your creative minds will be up to the task," Harry explained his idea.

"Sounds intriguing," agreed Fred, "And it could have double applications later on for pranks."

"The money to be made with that would also be great. And the customer base for serious products would be much larger than just for pranks," nodded George.

"So, you are in?" asked Harry.

"Sure," confirmed both twins.

"Great. I have already talked to Dad and Uncle Sirius. They agree to invest into your shop, as I could tell them the basic idea you had. Condition for that is that you can show at least four NEWTs each," stated Harry, "Once you have them, two thousand galleons are yours to use for the starting phase of your shop. I will invest five hundred galleons myself, immediately, to allow you to work on the products we spoke about. Not to mention that I want you at Hogwarts next year to keep an eye on both my siblings and the children of Death Eaters. Probably their families will be contacted, even if most Death Eaters were sent to Azkaban.

"I don't trust Dumbledore at all, and while Aaron has made great progress in his development, Dumbledore has an unhealthy interest in him. And Dahlia and Jasmine are soft targets that could be used by either side. I would rather have people I fully trust keeping an eye on things and informing me if Dumbledore tries his usual tricks."

"We can do that. It would be good to curb Ron's and Ginny's stupid ideas as well. Ever since Ron has discovered hormones, he has become even more annoying."

"And Ginny still believes that tripe Mum always told her about marrying Aaron."

"As if he wouldn't run for the hills if she or any of the other fangirls tried to get into his pants."

"Very true. Not to mention what Hermione would do," nodded Harry.

"That one can be scary!" agreed both twins.

"Well, she is idolising my Mum," revealed Harry, "Probably one reason why Aaron decided to go with Sylveena as a girlfriend over her. He would feel strange if his girlfriend reminded him too much of Mum. So better be careful and don't test any of your products on first-years. Secure your backs, then she can't get too bad."

The twins shuddered. Neither of them would be insane enough to challenge a witch that idolised Lily Potter.

"Understood, no aggravating Hermione," they promised, "how do we keep in contact with you without anybody finding out?"

"Two-way mirrors. My Dad and Uncle Sirius used them when they were at Hogwarts. I will give you one part and keep the other on my person. That way can't be intercepted, like owl post would be," answered Harry easily.

The twins grinned. That would be a great way to keep nosy busybodies out of the loop. Especially their mother, who had all but demanded that they helped Dumbledore keep an eye on Aaron at school next year. As if they would ever spy for the headmaster.

* * *

James and Lily watched how their oldest son was taken to France by the portkey. He would be starting his training with his new Quidditch team in two days and wanted to set up his apartment before he had to follow his new schedule. They were very proud of him, but they would miss having him around. The game had changed, but this time around, their chances to actually beat Voldemort before he could become too much of a problem were much better than last time. They knew he was back, which he had tried to prevent being found out. The future was going to be difficult, but as a family, they were sure to manage whatever was thrown into their path.

They wouldn't shy back from protecting their loved ones, no matter what Dumbledore might say about some of their methods. He had tried to appeal to them to re-join the Order of the Phoenix, but they had refused. Dumbledore was inefficient as a leader, and they wouldn't continue letting his pacifistic opinions let their comrades be killed. No, this time, they were more experienced, and it was better the opponent went down permanently, than their loved ones being killed. They had lost too much in the last war, and they wouldn't let that happen again.

Their children that still went to Hogwarts were warned to not follow any instructions of Dumbledore and Aaron got more training in how to work around the manipulative old man, who still was fixated on a stupid prophecy. As if he should be counting on a teenager to solve all their problems. This conflict had been created by the older generations. It wasn't up to the children to fight. And they would do all they could to prevent that Aaron fell into the same trap they had fallen into when they were at school. While his older brother might not be present anymore, Harry had given Aaron four years during which he didn't have to worry too much about the old man, and could just concentrate on his schooling, even if the last school year had been very stressful.

But they had cut off a lot of influence the headmaster had once wielded. Hogwarts was a school, not a political playground. Thankfully, they had also ensured that the DADA position would be filled with a competent teacher for the next year. Alice Longbottom had decided to take up the position, which she had cleared with both Sirius and Amelia Bones. Dumbledore wouldn't find a competent candidate anytime soon and having a pair of eyes at the school to look out for suspicious events would relieve the parents a lot. Alice would be on loan from the DMLE, supposedly because Amelia had enough of the constantly dropping DADA results from Hogwarts, which made it really hard for her to find suitable personnel for her department.

After a year, as the curse was a real thing, she would switch with another auror, to circumvent the curse hitting her. This way, they expected to ensure that Hogwarts would churn out more competent graduates. The game might have changed, but they were up to the challenge. Dumbledore and Voldemort better looked out, because the Potters and their allies didn't plan to lie down and let them win. Neither of them would do the right thing for their country. And they didn't believe that 'For the Greater Good' was a good argument to neglect things as much as Dumbledore did.

* * *

 **That's it for this story. Probably there will be another sequel in the future, but I can't say when it will happen. Perhaps another Christmas Story in the future :)**


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